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LIBRARY 

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THE 

DOMESTIC  SLAVE  TRADE 

OF    THE 

SOUTHERN  STATES 

BY 

WINFIELD    H.    COLLINS.    M.  A. 

*    \ 

Professor  of  History  and  English  in  Claremont  College. 


Broadway  Publishing 
Company  At  835 
Broadway  New  YorK 


Copyrighted,   in    1904, 
BY 

WINFIELP  H.  COLLINS,  M.A. 


TO 

EDWARD  G.  BOURNE,  PH.D., 
Professor  of  American  History,  Yale  University, 

AND  TO 

THOMAS  H.  LEWIS,  D.D., 
President  of  Western  Maryland  College, 

THIS  BOOK 
IS  INSCRIBED 

BY  THE  AUTHOR. 


225756 


PREFACE. 

WHEN  I  began  the  study  of  the  Domestic  Slave 
Trade  of  the  Southern  States  I  had  no  idea  of 
the  conclusions  as  herein  found.  Especially  is 
this  true  of  Chapters  III.  and  IV.  I  have  spared 
no  pains  to  be  accurate  in  all  statements  of  fact. 

The  material  for  this  work  was  collected  in 
the  Yale  University  Library  in  New  Haven,  Con 
necticut,  and  in  the  Congressional  Library  at 
Washington.  The  sources  used  are  to  be  found 
in  the  appended  bibliography.  The  most  helpful 
were  books  of  travel,  newspapers  and  periodicals, 
Statistics  of  Southern  States  and  the  United 
States  Census  Reports.  W.  H.  COLLINS. 

Claremont  College, 
Hickory,  N.  C. 

February  22,  1904. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAPTER  I. 

A  Sketch  of  the  Rise  of  the  Trade  in  African 
Slaves  and  of  the  Foreign  Slave  Trade  of  the 
Southern  States  .............................  I 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  Causes  of  the  Rise  and  Development  of  the 
Domestic  Slave  Trade  .......................  21} 

CHAPTER  III. 
The  Amount  and  Extent  of  the  Trade  ----  c  .......    §oj 


CHAPTER  IV. 
Were  Some  States  Engaged  in  Breeding  and  Rais 

ing    Negroes    for    Sale?  ......................     68 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Kidnapping  and  Selling  of  Free  Negroes  into 

Slavery    .................  ,  .....................     84 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Slave  "Prisons"  Markets,  Character  of  Traders,  etc.    96 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Laws   of  the   Southern    States   with   Reference  to 
Importation  and  Exportation  of  Slaves  ......     109 

BIBLIOGRAPHY    ...................................  140 


THE  DOMESTIC  SLAVE  TRADE 

OF  THE 

SOUTHERN  STATES. 


CHAPTER  I. 

A  SKETCH  OF  THE  RISE  OF  THE  SLAVE  TRADE  IN 
AFRICAN  STATES  AND  OF  THE  FOREIGN  SLAVE 
TRADE  OF  THE   SOUTHERN   STATES. 

IT  is  not  our  intention  nor  is  it  within  our 
province  to  enter  into  details  concerning  the  for 
eign  slave  trade.  It  seems,  however,  that  a  brief 
account  is  necessary  as  introductory  to  the  sub 
ject  of  the  Domestic  Slave  Trade. 

The  rise  in  Europe  of  the  traffic  in  slaves  from 
Africa  was  an  incident  in  the  commercial  ex 
pansion  of  Portugal.  It  was  coeval  and  almost 
coextensive  with  the  development  of  commerce, 
and  followed  in  the  wake  of  discovery  and  colo 
nization. 


2        The   Domestic    Slave   Trade 

The  first  name  connected  with"  it  is  that  ol 
Antonio  Gongalvez,  who  was  a  marine  under 
Prince  Henry  the  Navigator.  In  1441  he  was 
sent  to  Cape  Bojador  to  get  a  vessel  load  of  "sea- 
wolves"  skins.  He  signalized  his  voyage  by  the 
capture  of  some  Moors  whom  he  carried  to  Por 
tugal.  In  1442  these  Moors  promised  black 
slaves  as  a  ransom  for  themselves.  Prince  Henry 
approved  of  this  exchange  and  Gongalvez  took 
the  captives  home  and  received,  among  other 
things,  ten  black  slaves  in  exchange  for  two  of 
them.  The  king  justified  his  "act  on  the  ground 
that  the  negroes  might  be  converted  to  the 
Christian  religion,  but  the  Moors  could  not.1 
Two  years  later  the  Company  of  Lagos  chartered 
by  the  king,  and  engaged  in  exploration  on  the 
coast  of  Africa,  imported  about  two  hundred 
slaves  from  the  islands  of  Nar  and  Tidar.2 
"This  year  (1444)  Europe  may  be  said  to  Have 
made  a  distinct  beginning  in  the  slave  trade, 
henceforth  to  spread  on  all  sides  like  the  waves 


1A.  Helps:  The  Spanish  Conquest  of  America,  Vol. 
,  30-32. 

•Ibid.,  35-36. 


Of    the    Southern    States.  3 

[in]  stirred  up  water,  and  not  like  them  to  be 
come  fainter  and  fainter  as  the  circles  widen."3 

After  the  discovery  of  America,  the  islands 
which  became  known  as  the  Spanish  West  In 
dies  were  speedily  colonized,  and  the  inefficiency 
of  the  Indian  as  a  laborer  in  the  mines  there  soon 
led  to  the  substitution  of  the  negro.  As  early 
as  1502  a  few  were  employed,  and  in  1517  Charles 
V.  granted  a  patent  to  certain  traders  for  the 
exclusive  supply  of  4,000  negroes  annually  to  the 
islands  of  Hispaniola,  Cuba,  Jamaica  and  Porto 
Rico.4 

So  far  as  known  John  Hawkins  was  the  first 
Englishman  to  engage  in  the  slave  traffic.  He 
left  England  for  Sierra  Leone  with  three  ships 
and  a  hundred  men  in  1562,  and  having  secured 
three  hundred  negroes  he  proceeded  to  His 
paniola  where  he  disposed  of  them,  and  having 
had  a  very  profitable  voyage,  he  returned  to 
England  in  1563.  This  appears  to  have  excited 
the  avarice  of  the  British  Government.  The  next 


3Helps:  Sp.  Con.  of  Am.,  Vol.  I.,  40. 

4Edwards:  British  West  Indies,  Vol.  II.,  44. 
Brock:  Va.  Hist.  So.  Collection,  Vol.  VI.,  2 


4        The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

year  Hawkins  was  appointed  to  the  command  of 
one  of  the  Queen's  ships  and  proceeded  to  Africa 
where  in  company  with  several  others,  it  appears, 
he  engaged  in  the  slave  traffic.5 

In  1624  France  began  the  slave  trade  and  later 
Holland,  Denmark,  New  England  and  other 
English  colonies,  though  the  leader  in  the  trade 
and  the  last  to  abandori^it  was  Great  Britain.0 

The  first  slaves  introduced  into  any  of  the  Eng 
lish  continental  colonies  was  in  1619  about  the 
last  of  August  when  a  piratical  Dutch  frigate, 
manned  chiefly  by  English,  stopped  at  James 
town,  Virginia,  and  sold  the  colonists  twenty 
negroes.7  Even  for  a  long  while  after  this,  it 
seems,  importation  of  negroes  was  merely  of  an 
occasional  or  incidental  nature.  Indeed,  in  1648 
only  three  hundred  negroes  were  to  be  found 
in  Virginia.8  However,  several  shiploads  were 


5Edwards:  British  West  Indies,  Vol.  II,  47-8. 
6Balla«gh :  Hist,  of  Slavery  in  Va.,  p.  4. 

7John  Smith:  Hist  of  Va,  Vol.  II.,  39. 

Ballaugh:  Hist,  of  Slavery  in  Va,  pp.  8-9.  There 
has  been  some  misunderstanding  as  to  the  date,  but 
Ballaugh  makes  it  clear  that  1619  is  correct. 

sBrock:  Va.  Hist.  So.  Coll,  VI,  Q. 
Ballaugh:  Hist.  SI.  in  Va.,  p.  9. 


Of    the    Southern    States.  5 

brought  in  between  1664  and  1671,  and  at  the 
latter  date  Virginia  had  two  thousand  slaves.9 
During  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  and  the 
early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  importa 
tion  of  negroes  gradually  increased.  In  1705, 
eighteen  hundred  negroes  were  brought  in  and 
in  1715  Virginia  had  twenty-three  thousand.  By 
1723  they  were  being  imported  into  this  colony 
at  the  rate  of  fifteen  hundred  or  sixteen  hundred 
a  year.10 

In  the  eighteenth  century  Virginia  sought 
from  time  to  time  to  hinder  the  introduction  of 
slaves  by  placing  heavy  duties  on  them.  Indeed, 
from  1732  until  the  Revolution  there  were  only 
about  six  months  in  which  slaves  could  be 
brought  into  Virginia  free  of  duty.11  Neverthe 
less,  in  1776  Virginia  had  165,000  slaves.12 

Though  all  the  other  colonies  imported  slaves 
more  or  less  during  the  same  period,  yet  with 


•:  States  at  Large,  Vol.  II.,  515. 
10Ballaugh:  Hist.  SI.  in  Va.,  pp.  10-14. 
"Ibid.,  p.  19. 

12De  Bow:  Industrial  Resources  of  the  South,  Vol. 
III.,  130. 


6        The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

the  possible  exception  of  South  Carolina  they 
fell  far  short  of  the  number  imported  by  Vir 
ginia. 

In  November  1708,  Governor  Seymour  of 
Maryland,  writing  to  the  English  Board  of 
Trade,  stated  that  2,290  negroes  were  imported 
into  that  colony  from  midsummer  1698  to  Christ 
mas  1707.  He  reported  the  trade  to  be  run 
ning  very  high,  six  or  seven  hundred  having 
been  imported  during  the  year.  In  1712  there 
were  8,330  negroes  in  Maryland.13  During  about 
the  same  time  (midsummer  1699  to  October 
1708)  Virginia  imported  6,6o714  while  a  northern 
colony,  New  Jersey,  imported  only  one  hundred 
and  fifteen  from  1698  to  1726.™ 

Du  Bois  says  that  South  Carolina  received 
about  three  thousand  slaves  a  year  from  1733  to 
I766.16  She  had  forty  thousand  in  I74O.17 

In  1700  North  Carolina  had  eleven  hundred, 

"Scharf:    Hist,  of  Md.,  Vol.  I.,  376-7- 
*4N.  C.  Colonial  Records,  Vol.  I.,  693. 
15N.  J.  Archives,  Vol.  V.,  152. 

Bois:  Suppression  of  Slave  Trade,  p.  5. 
Hist,  of  Ga.,  II.,  125. 


Of   the    Southern    States.  7 

1732  six  thousand/8  and  in  1764  about  thirty 
thousand.19 

Until  near  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century  it  was  rare  that  the  English  continental 
colonies  received  a  shipload  of  slaves  direct  from 
Africa,  and  even  these  were  usually  brought  in 
by  some  unlicensed  "interloper."  It  is  very 
probable  that  most  of  the  negroes  imported  be 
fore  this  time  were  from  Barbados,  Jamaica  and 
other  West  India  Islands.20  But  by  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century  it  appears  that  slaves 
were  being  imported  more  rapidly.  After  the 
Assiento,21  in  1713,  England  became  a  great  car 
rier  of  slaves  and  so  continued  until  the  Revolu 
tion.22  The  effect  of  this  was  very  sensibly  felt 
by  the  colonies. 

Even  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 


18N.  C.  Colonial  Records,  Vol.  II.,  p.  17. 
19Bassett :  Slavery  and  Servitude  in  N.  C.,  pages  20-22. 
In  J.  H.  U.  Studies,  Vol.  XIV. 

2<>Scharf:  Hist,  of  Md,  Vol.  I.,  376-7. 
N.  C.  Colonial  Records,  Vol.  I.,  693. 

21The  Assiento  was  a  treaty  between  England  and 
Spain,  by  which  Spain  granted  England  a  monopoly  of        v 
the  Spanish  colonial  slave  trade  for  thirty  years.     Du 
Bois:  Suppression  of  Slave  Trade,  p.  3. 

22Du  Bois:  Suppression  of  Slave  Trade,  p.  4-6. 


8       The   Domestic    Slave   Trade 

tury  some  of  the  colonies  began  to  show  their  dis 
like  by  levying  duties  on  further  importation.  In 
the  eighteenth  century  the  colonial  opposition  to 
the  importation  of  slaves,  arising  probably  from  a 
fear  of  insurrection,  became  much  more  pro 
nounced.  Heavy  restrictions  in  the  form  of  duties 
were  laid  upon  the  trade.  In  some  cases  these 
were  so  heavy  as  would  seem  to  amount  to  total 
prohibition.23  But  the  efforts  on  the  part  of  the 
colonies  to  restrict  the  trade  were  frowned  upon 
and  often  disallowed  by  the  British  Government.24 
In  1754  the  instructions  to  Governor  Dobbs,  of 
North  Carolina,  were :  "Whereas,  acts  have  been 
passed  in  some  of  our  plantations  in  America 
for  laying  duties  on  the  importation  and  exporta 
tion  of  negroes  to  the  great  discouragement  of 
the  Merchants  trading  thither  from  the  coast  of 
Africa,  .  .  .  it  is  our  will  and  pleasure  that 
you  do  not  give  your  assent  to  or  pass  any  law 
imposing  duties  upon  negroes  imported  into  our 
Province  of  North  Carolina."25 


23Du  Bois :  Suppression  of  Slave  Trade,  Appendix  A. 

24Ibid.,  pp.  4-5. 

2&N.  C  Col.  Rec.,  Vol.  V.,  1118. 


Of    the    Southern    States. 

The  colonies  considered  the  slave  trade  so  im 
portant  to  Great  Britain  that  at  the  dawn  of  the 
Revolution  some  of  them  appear  to  have  had 
hopes  of  bringing  her  to  terms  by  refusing  to  im 
port  any  more  slaves.26 

In  the  original  draft  of  the  Declaration  of  In 
dependence  as  submitted  by  Jefferson,  the  king  of 
Great  Britain  is  arraigned  "for  suppressing  every 
legislative  attempt  to  prohibit  or  restrain  this  exe 
crable  commerce."27 

j^It  has  been  estimated  that  in  the  year  of  the 
Declaration  the  whole  number  of  slaves  in  the 
thirteen  colonies  was  502,132,  apportioned  as 
follows:  Massachusetts,  3,500;  Rhode  Island, 
4>37°~  J  Connecticut,  6,000 ;  New  Hampshire,  627 ; 
New  York,  15,000;  New  Jersey,  7,600;  Penn 
sylvania,  10,000;  Delaware,  9,000;  Maryland, 
80,000;  Georgia,  16,000;  North  Carolina,  75,- 
ooo ;  South  Carolina,  110,000;  Virginia,  165,-  * 
ooo.28 


Bois:  Suppression  of  Slave  Trade,  pp.  42-8. 
27Ford :  Jefferson's  Works,  Vol.  II.,  23. 

28De  Bow's:  Industrial  Resources,  Vol.  III.,  130. 
Liberator:  Feb.  23,  1849. 


The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

Two  years  after  this,  in  1778,  Virginia  took  the 
lead  against  the  introduction  of  slaves  by  passing 
a  law  prohibiting  importation  either  by  land  or 
sea.  This  law  made  an  exception  of  travellers  and 
immigrants.29  Other  States  soon  followed  suit, 
passing  laws  to  restrict  it  temporarily  or  at  speci 
fied  places.30  By  1803  all  the  States  and  territo 
ries  had  laws  in  force  prohibiting  the  importa 
tion  of  slaves  from  abroad.31  It  must  not  be  sup 
posed,  however,  that  these  were  entirely  effective. 
Indeed,  the  statement  was  made  in  Congress  Feb. 
14,  1804,  that  in  the  preceding  twelve  months 
"twenty  thousand"  enslaved  negroes  had  been 
transported  from  Guinea,  and  by  smuggling, 
added  to  the  plantation  stock  of  Georgia  and 
South  Carolina.32 

In  1798  an  act  of  Congress  establishing  the 
territory  of  Mississippi  provided  that  no  slave 
should  be  brought  within  its  limits  from  without 


29Hening;  Statutes  at  Large,  Vol.  IX.,  p.  471- 
30Chap.  on  Laws,  C.  VII.,  this  book. 
Du  Bois:  Suppres.  SI.  Trade,  Appendices  A.  and  B. 

^Ibid. 

Schouler:  Hist.  U.  S.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  56. 

Chap.  VII.  on  Laws,  this  volume. 
'2Annals  of  Congress,  8th  Cong.,  ist  Sess.,  1000. 


Of   the   Southern   States,         i.i 

the  United  States.33  In  1804,  when  Louisiana 
was  erected  into  the  territories  of  Louisiana  and 
Orleans  the  provision  was  made  that  only  slaves 
which  had  been  imported  before  May  i,  1798, 
might  be  introduced  into  the  territories  and  these 
must  be  the  bona  fide  property  of  actual  settlers.3* 

Upon  the  petition  of  the  inhabitants  for  the 
removal  of  the  restrictions,  a  bill  was  introduced 
in  Congress,  of  which  Du  Bois  says :  "By  dexter 
ous  wording,  this  bill,  which  became  a  law  March 
2,  1805,  swept  away  all  restrictions  upon  the  slave 
trade  except  that  relating  to  foreign  ports,  and 
left  even  this  provision  so  ambiguous  that  later 
by  judicial  interpretations  of  the  law,  the  foreign 
slave  trade  was  allowed  at  least  for  a  time."35 

South  Carolina  had  even  before  this  time  (De 
cember  17,  1803),  repealed  her  law  against  the  im 
portation  of  slaves  from  Africa.36  The  trade  was 
thus  open  through  this  State  for  four  years,  dur- 


33Poore :  Fed.  and  State  Constitutions,  Part  2,  1050. 

^Ibid. 

35Du  Bois:  Suppression  of  Slave  Trade,  pp.  89-90. 

36McCord :  S.  C.  Statutes  at  Large,  Vol.  VII.,  p.  449. 
Du  Bois:  p.  240, 


12      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

ing  which  time  39,075  slaves  were  imported 
through  Charleston37  alone. 

The  action  of  South  Carolina  in  opening  the 
slave  trade  forced  the  question  upon  the  attention 
of  Congress.  During  1805-6  it  was  much  dis 
cussed38  but  it  was  not  until  March  2,  1807,  that  a 
bill  was  passed  against  it.  This  prohibited  the 
importation  of  slaves  after  January  I,  1808,  under 
penalty  of  imprisonment  for  not  less  than  five 
nor  more  than  ten  years,  and  a  fine  of  not  less 
than  $5,000  nor  more  than  $io,ooo.39 

This  law  was  not  entirely  effective.  In  1810 
the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  writing  to  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  says :  "I  hear  not  without  great 
concern,  that  the  law  prohibiting  the  importation 
of  slaves  has  been  violated  in  frequent  instances 
near  St.  Mary's."40 

Drake,  a  slave  smuggler,  says,  that  during  the 
war  of  1812  the  business  of  smuggling  slaves 


37Annals  of  Congress,  1 6  Con.,  2nd  Sess.,  p.  77. 
38Du  Bois:  pp.  91-3. 

39Annals  of  Cong.,  g  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  Appendix  1266-72. 
<°House  Doc.,  15  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  IV.,  No.  84,  p.  .5. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         13 

through  Florida  into  the  United  States  was  a 
lively  one.41 

Vincent  Nolte  says  that  in  1813  "pirates  cap 
tured  Spanish  and  other  slave  ships  on  the  high 
seas  and  established  their  main  depot  and  rendez 
vous  on  the  island  of  Barataria  lying  near 
the  coast  adjacent  to  New  Orleans.  This  place 
was  visited  by  the  sugar  planters,  chiefly  of 
French  origin,  who  bought  up  the  stolen  slaves 
at  from  $150  to  $200  per  head  when  they  could 
not  have  procured  as  good  stock  in  the  city  for  less 
than  $600  or  $700.  These  were  then  conveyed 
to  the  different  plantations,  through  the  innu 
merable  creeks  called  bayous,  that  communicate 
with  each  other  by  manifold  little  branches."42 

In  1817-1819  slaves  were  very  high  and  in  great 
demand  in  the  South.  As  a  consequence  great 
numbers  of  them  were  smuggled  in  at  various 
places.  The  evidence  of  this  is  quite  convincing. 

Amelia  Island  and  the  town  of  St.  Mary's  be 
came  notorious  as  two  of  the  principal  rendez- 

41Drake:  Revelations  of  a  Slave  Smuggler,  51,  quoted 
by  Du  Bois,  p.  n. 

42Vincent  Nolte:  Fifty  Years  in  Both  Hemispheres, 
p.  189. 


14      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

vous  of  smugglers.  A  writer  in  "Miles'  Register" 
in  1818  says  that  a  regular  chain  of  posts  was 
established  from  the  head  of  St.  Mary's  river  to 
the  upper  country,  and  through  the  Indian  na 
tion  by  means  of  which  slaves  are  hurried  to  every 
part  of  the  country.  The  woodmen  along  the 
river  side  rode  like  so  many  Arabs  loaded  with 
slaves  ready  for  market.  When  ready  to  form  a 
caravan,  an  Indian  alarm  was  created  that  the 
woods  might  be  less  frequented,  and  if  pursued 
in  Georgia  they  escaped  to  Florida.43 

Mr.  M'Intosh,  Collector  of  the  Port  of  Darien, 
in  a  letter  in  1818,  says:  "I  am  in  possession  of 
undoubted  information  that  African  and  West 
Indian  negroes  are  almost  daily  illicitly  intro 
duced  into  Georgia,  for  sale  or  settlement,  or 
passing  through  it  to  the  territories  of  the  United 
States."44 

In  1817  it  was  reported  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  that  "most  of  the  goods  carried  to  Galves- 
ton  are  introduced  into  the  United  States,  the  most 


'  Reg.,  May  2,  1818. 

*4State    Papers,    ist    Sess.,    i6th    Cong.,   Vol.    3,    H. 
Doc.  42. 


Of   the    Southern    States.          15 

bulky  and  least  valuable  regularly  through  the 
custom  house;  the  most  valuable  and  the  slaves 
are  smuggled  in  through  the  numerous  inlets  to 
the  westward  where  the  people  are  but  too  much 
disposed  to  render  them  every  possible  assistance. 
Several  hundred  slaves  are  now  at  Galveston."45 
"Niles'  Register,"  in  1818,  quoting  from  the 
"Democrat  Press,"  has  a  very  interesting  account 
of  how  the  law  against  the  importation  of  slaves 
was  evaded  at  New  Orleans :  An  agent  would  be 
sent  to  the  West  Indies  and  even  to  Africa  to 
purchase  a  cargo  of  slaves.  On  the  return  when 
the  slave  ship  got  near  Balize  the  agent  would 
leave  her,  go  in  haste  to  New  Orleans  and  inform 
the  proper  authorities  that  a  certain  vessel  had 
come  into  the  Mississippi,  said  to  be  bound  for 
New  Orleans  and  having  on  board  a  certain  num 
ber  of  negroes  contrary  to  the  law  of  the  United 
States.  The  vessel  and  cargo  would  be  libelled 
and  the  slaves  sold  at  public  auction.  One  half 
of  the  purchase  money  would  go  to  the  informer 
and  the  other  to  the  United  States.46  The  in- 

45Niles'  Reg.,  Jan.  22,  1820. 

"Ibid.,   Dec.    12,    1818,   Louisiana   had  a   law   which 


1 6      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

former  and  agent  was  the  same  man  and  a  part 
ner  in  the  transaction.  This  was  a  profitable 
business  and  about  ten  thousand  slaves  a  year  are 
said  to  have  been  thus  introduced.47 

It  is  quite  evident  that  the  illicit  slave  trade 
at  this  time  was  very  great.  In  1819  Mr.  Middle- 
ton,  of  South  Carolina,  said  in  Congress  that  in 
his  opinion  thirteen  thousand  Africans  were  an 
nually  smuggled  into  the  United  States,  and  Mr. 
Wright,  of  Virginia,  estimated  the  number  at  fif 
teen  thousand.48 

In  1818,  1819  and  1820  Congress  passed  acts  to 
supplement  and  render  more  effective  the  act  of 
iSo/.49  Du  Bois  says  that  for  a  decade  after  1825 
there  appears  little  positive  evidence  of  a  large  il 
licit  importation,  but  thinks  notwithstanding  that 
slaves  were  largely  imported.50 

Captain  J.  E.  Alexander  in  a  book  published 

provided  that  slaves  imported  contrary  to  Act  of  Con 
gress    March  2,    1807,    should   be   seized  and   sold   for 
benefit  of  the  State.     (Kurd,  Vol.  II.,  p.  I59-)     But  the 
whole  story  is  denied  by  another  writer.     (Niles    Keg., 
Dec.  12,  1818.) 
47Niles'   Reg.,  Dec.   12,   1818. 
4»Wm.  Jay:  Miscell.  Writings  on  Slavery,  p.  277. 
Bois:  Pp.  118-122. 
p.  128. 


Of    the    Southern    States.          17 

in  1833  says  tnat  he  was  assured  by  a  planter  of 
forty  years'  standing  that  persons  in  New  Orleans 
were  connected  with  slave  traders  in  Cuba,  and 
that  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year  they  would  go 
up  the  Mississippi  River  and  meet  slave  ships  off 
the  coast.  They  would  relieve  these  of  their  car 
goes,  return  to  the  main  stream  of  the  river,  drop 
down  in  flat  boats  and  dispose  of  the  negroes  to 
those  who  wished  them.51  Thomas  Powell  Bux- 
ton  makes  the  statement,  upon  what  he  claims 
to  be  high  authority,  that  fifteen  thousand  ne 
groes  were  imported  into  Texas  from  Africa  in 
one  year,  about  i838.52 

The  "Liberator"  quoting  the  "Maryland  Colo 
nization  Herald,"  says  a  writer  in  that  paper  was 
assured,  in  1838,  by  Pedro  Blanco,  one  of  the 
largest  slave  traders  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  that 
for  the  preceding  forty  years  the  United  States 
had  been  his  best  market  through  the  west  end 
of  Cuba  and  Texas.53 

"Between  1847  and  1853,"  says  Du  Bois,  "the 


51  Alexander:  Transatlantic  Sketches,  p.  230. 
52Buxton:  The  African  Slave  Trade,  p.  44. 
53Liberator:  Aug.  18,  1854. 


li 8      The    Domestic    Slave    Trade 

slave  smuggler  Drake  had  a  slave  depot  in  the 
Gulf,  where  sometimes  as  many  as  sixteen  hun 
dred  negroes  were  on  hand,  and  the  owners  were 
continually  importing  and  shipping." 

Drake  himself  says:  "Our  island  was  visited 
almost  weekly  by  agents  from  Cuba,  New  York, 
Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  Boston  and  New  Or 
leans,  ...  the  seasoned  and  instructed  slaves 
were  taken  to  Texas  or  Florida,  overland,  and  to 
Cuba,  in  sailing  boats.  As  no  squad  contained 
more  than  half  a  dozen,  no  difficulty  was  found 
in  posting  them  to  the  United  States,  without 
discovery,  and  generally  without  suspicion.  .  .  . 
The  Bay  Island  plantation  sent  ventures  weekly 
to  the  Florida  Keys.  Slaves  were  taken  into  the 
great  American  swamps,  and  there  kept  till 
wanted  for  market.  Hundreds  were  sold  as  run 
aways  from  the  Florida  wilderness.  We  had 
agents  in  every  slave  State,  and  our  coasters  were 
built  in  Maine  and  came  out  with  lumber.  I 
could  tell  curious  stories  ...  of  this  business 
of  smuggling  Bozal  negroes  into  the  United 
States.  It  is  growing  more  profitable  every  year, 
and  if  you  should  hang  all  the  Yankee  merchants 


Of    the    Southern    States.         119 

engaged  in  it,  hundreds  would  fill  their  places."54 
Owing  to  the  increasing  demand,  and  to  the 
high  price  of  slaves  from  1845  to  1860,  and  to  the 
fact  that  the  Southern  people  were  becoming 
more  and  more  favorable  to  the  reopening  of  the 
African  slave  trade,  thus  making  it  easier  to  prac 
tice  smuggling  successfully,  we  have  no  reason 
to  doubt  the  truth  of  these  accounts  of  this  il 
licit  traffic. 

Stephen  A.  Douglas  said  in  1859  it  was  his  con 
fident  opinion  that  more  than  fifteen  thousand 
slaves  had  been  imported  in  the  preceding  year, 
and  that  the  trade  had  been  carried  on  exten 
sively  for  a  long  while.55  About  1860  it  was  stated 
that  twenty  large  cities  and  towns  in  the  South 
were  depots  for  African  slaves  and  sixty  or 
seventy  cargoes  of  slaves  had  been  introduced 
in  the  preceding  eighteen  months.56  It  was  esti 
mated  in  1860  that  eighty-five  vessels  which  had 
been  fitted  out  from  New  York  City  during  eigh- 


54Reyelations  of  a  Slave  Smuggler,  p.  98.    Quoted  by 
Du  Bois,  p.  166. 
5527  Report  Am.  Anti-Slavery  So.,  p.  20. 

Du  Bois:  P.  181. 
6627  Report  Am.  Anti-Si.  So.,  p.  21.    Du  Bois,  p.  182. 


2O      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

teen  months  of  1859  and  1860,  would  introduce 
from  thirty  thousand  to  sixty  thousand  annually.57 

From  what  has  been  said  it  seems  to  us  certain 
that  at  least  270,000  slaves  were  introduced  into 
the  United  States  from  1808  to  1860  inclusive.58 
These  we  would  distribute  as  follows :  Between 
1808  and  1820,  sixty  thousand ;  1820  to  1830, 
fifty  thousand;  1830  to  1840,  forty  thousand; 
1840  to  1850,  fifty  thousand  and  from  1850  to 
1860  seventy  thousand.  We  consider  these  very 
moderate  and  even  low  estimates. 

It  will  be  seen  later  that  these  figures  are  of 
prime  importance  in  accounting  for  the  presence 
of  certain  slaves  in  the  States  of  the  extreme 
South. 


57J.  J.  Lalor:  Cyclopedia,  Vol.  III.,  p.  733- 
58This  is  little  more  than  the  estimate  which  Du  Bois 
made  before  he  wrote  his  book,  "Suppression  of  the 
Slave  Trade."  "From  1807  to  1862  there  were  annually 
introduced  into  the  United  States  from  1,000  to  15,000 
Africans,  and  that  the  total  number  thus  brought  in  in 
contravention  alike  of  humanity  and  law  was  not  jess 
than  250,000."  "Enforcement  of  Slave  Trade  Laws,"  in 
the  Annual  Report  of  the  Am.  Hist.  Assoc.  for  the  year 
1891,  p.  173.  The  estimate  of  270,000  in  the  text  was 
made  after  careful  study,  and  before  the  writer  knew 
of  Du  Bois'  estimate. 


Of   the    Southern    States.         21 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   CAUSES  OF  THE   RISE   AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF 
THE    DOMESTIC    SLAVE    TRADE. 

THE  prohibition  of  the  foreign  slave  trade  by 
the  States  and  the  Federal  Government  is  the  first 
thing  to  be  considered  in  connection  with  the  de 
velopment  of  the  internal  slave  trade.    Although 
before  1808  all  the  States  had  passed  laws  to 
prohibit  the  introduction  of  slaves  from  without 
the  United  States,  yet  each  State  had  the  power 
to  reopen  the  trade  at  will.    South  Carolina,  per 
haps,  thinking  it  might  be  for  the  interest  of  the 
State,  opened  the  foreign  trade  in  1803.*    During 
the  four  years  following  so  many  slaves  were  im 
ported  that  the  market  in  the  United  States  be 
came  overstocked  and  many  of  the  negroes  were 
sent  to  the  West  Indies  for  sale.2    Had  the  States 


iMcCord:  S.  C.  Statutes  at  Large,  Vol.  VII.,  p.  449- 
^Annals  of  Congress,  16  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  p.  77- 


22      The   Domestic    Slave    Trade 

retained  the  power  to  import,  it  is  not  probable 
that  the  domestic  trade  would  ever  have  assumed 
any  great  importance.  It  is  not  likely  that  the 
people  of  the  South  and  West  would  have  paid 
high  prices  for  the  negroes  from  the  border 
States  when  they  could  have  been  had  from 
abroad  for  so  much  less. 

The  great  profits,  too,  which  induced  men  to 
carry  on  the  domestic  trade  would  have  been 
wanting.  Assuming  this,  then,  the  consequent 
low  price  of  slaves  in  the  border  slave  States, 
added  to  the  disinclination  of  many  in  these  States 
to  make  merchandise  of  the  negro,  might  have  led, 
as  the  negroes  increased  and  became  a  burden'^ 
upon  their  masters,  to  gradual  emancipation. 

In  1807,  however,  when  Congress  exercised  its 
constitutional  right  and  prohibited  the  importation 
of  slaves  from  without  the  United  States  after 
January  i,  1808,  the  right  of  the  individual  States 
to  import  slaves  from  foreign  countries  was  lost. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  only  a  few  years 
before  the  passage  of  the  Federal  non-importa 
tion-slave  act  the  vast  territory  of  Louisiana  had 
been  purchased  from  France.  The  acquisition  of 


Of    the    Southern    States.         23 

this  territory  had  a  wonderful  influence  upon  the 
development  and  continuance  of  the  internal  slave 
trade. 

Of  much  less  influence,  and  we  might  even  say, 
of  comparative  insignificance,  was  the  Florida  ces 
sion  of  1819.  In  a  very  short  time  this  fertile  re 
gion  of  the  Louisiana  purchase  began. to  attract 
great  numbers  of  immigrants  who,  it  seems,  often 
brought  their  slaves  with  them.  But  there  were 
many  who  still  had  to  be  supplied.3  To  meet  this 
demand  recourse  was  had,  principally,  to  the  ex 
hausted  plantations  of  Virginia  and  Maryland.4 

Tobacco,  which  had  been  a  great  agricultural 
staple  in  these  States,  had  worn  out  the  land.  The 
price  of  tobacco,  too,  from  about  1818  was  very 
low  and  continued  so  until  about  iS/p.5  At  the 
same  time  new  States  such  as  Kentucky,  Tennes 
see,  Missouri,  the  Carolinas  and  Georgia,  had  be 
come  great  tobacco  States.  Such  quantities  came 
to  be  raised  as  to  make  the  culture  very  un- 

3(Ingraham)  :  The  Southwest,  Vol.  II.,  p.  223. 

4Alexander:   Transatlantic  Sketches,  p.  250 
Basil  Hall :  Travels  in  N.  Am.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  217. 

^Hunt's :  Merchants'  Magazine,  Vol.  VI.,  p.  473. 


24      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

profitable  in  Virginia  and  Maryland.6  The  con 
dition  with  respect  to  this  section  could  be  no  bet 
ter  illustrated  than  by  a  quotation  from  a  speech 
of  Thomas  Marshall  in  the  Virginia  House  of 
Delegates,  January  20,  1832 : 

"Mr.  Taylor,  of  Carolina,"  he  says,  "had  under 
stood  that  60,000  hogsheads  of  tobacco  were  ex 
ported  from  Virginia,  when  the  whole  population 
did  not  exceed  150,000.  Had  the  fertility  of  the 
country  by  possibility  remained  undiminished. 
Virginia  ought  in  1810  to  have  exported  240,000 
hogsheads,  or  their  equivalent  in  other  produce, 
and  at  present  nearly  double  that.  Thus  the  agri 
cultural  exports  of  Virginia  in  1810  would,  at  the 
estimated  prices  of  the  Custom  House  at  that  time, 
have  been  seventeen  millions  of  dollars  and  now  at 
least  thirty-four,  while  it  is  known  that  they  are 
not  of  late  years  greater  than  from  three  to  five 
millions.  .  .  . 

"The  fact  that  the  whole  agricultural  products 
of  the  State  at  present,  do  not  exceed  in  value  the 


"Speech  of  Thomas  Marshall  in  Va.,  H.  Del.,  1832. 
Richmond  Enquirer,  Feb.  2,  1832. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         25 

exports  eighty  or  ninety  years  ago,  when  it  con 
tained  not  a  sixth  of  the  population,  and  when 
not  a  third  of  the  surface  of  that  State  (at  present 
Virginia)  \yas  at  all  occupied,  is,  however,  a  strike 
mg  proof  of  the  decline  of  its  agriculture.   What 
is  now  the  productive  value  of  an  estate  of  land 
and  negroes  in  Virginia  ?   We  state  as  the  result 
of  extensive  inquiry,  embracing  the  last  fifteen, 
years,  that  a  very  great  proportion  of  the  larger 
plantations,  with  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  slaves, 
actually  bring  their  proprietors  in  debt  at  the  end 
of  a  short  term  of  years,  notwithstanding  what 
would  once  in  Virginia  have  been  deemed  very 
sheer  economy,  that  much  the  larger  part  of  the 
considerable    landholders    are    content,    if    they 
barely  meet  their  plantation  expenses  without  a 
loss  of  capital ;  and  that  of  those  who  make  any 
profit,  it  will  be  none  but  rare  instances,  average 
more  than  one  and  a  half  per  cent,  on  the  capital 
invested.    The  case  is  not  materially  varied  with 
the  smaller  proprietors.    Mr.  Randolph,  of  Roa- 
noke,  whose  sayings  have  so  generally  the  raciness 
and  the  truth  of  proverbs,  has  repeatedly  said  in 
Congress,  that  the  time  was  coming  when  the  mas- 


26      The   Domestic   Slave   Trade 

ters  would  run  away  from  the  slaves  and  be  ad 
vertised  by  them  in  the  public  papers."7 

It  seems  that  agriculture  had  taken  a  new  start 
about  1 8 1 6,  probably  owing  to  the  fact  that  to 
bacco  was  very  high,  being  from  8  to  15  cents  per 
pound,8  for  Colonel  Mercer  in  the  Virginia  Con 
stitutional  Convention  of  1829  said  that  in  1817 
the  lands  of  Virginia  were  valued  at  $206,000,000 
and  that  negroes  averaged  $300  each,  while  by 
1829  lands  had  decreased  in  value  to  $80,000,000 
or  $90,000,000  and  negroes  to  $150  each.9  But 
while  agriculture  was  in  such  a  discouraging  con 
dition  in  the  worn  out  States,  Louisiana  and  other 
States  of  the  Southwest  were  being  opened  up 
and  were  looked  on  as  the  land  of  promise.  Im 
migrants  to  that  favored  section  wrote  glowing 
accounts  of  the  fertility  of  the  country  and  of  the 
delightful  climate.  An  emigrant  from  Maryland 
writes  from  Louisiana  in  1817: 

"Do  not  the  climate,  the  soil  and  productions 


^Richmond  Enquirer,  Feb.  2,  1832. 
8Hunt's:  Merchants'  Magazine,  VI.,  p.  473- 

9Proceedings  and  Debate  of  the  Va.  St.  Con.  Con., 
1829-30,  p.  178. 


Of   the    Southern   States.;         27 

of  this  country  furnish  allurements  to  the  appli 
cation  of  your  negroes  on  our  lands?  In  your 
States  a  planter,  with  ten  negroes,  with  difficulty 
supports  a  family  genteelly ;  here  well  managed, 
they  would  be  a  fortune  to  him.  With  you  the 
seasons  are  so  irregular  your  crops  often  fail; 
here  the  crops  are  certain,  and  want  of  the  neces 
saries  of  life,  never  for  a  moment  causes  the  heart 
to  ache — abundance  spreads  the  table  of  the  poor 
man  and  contentment  smiles  on  every  counte 
nance."10 

In  marked  contrast  to  the  unprofitableness  of 
slave  labor  in  the  older  slave  States  was  their 
immense  profit  when  employed  on  the  fresh  lands 
of  the  Southwest.  Some  planters  in  this  section 
had  plantations  thousands  of  acres  in  extent.11  To 
cultivate  them  great  numbers  of  slaves  were  re 
quired.  If  the  crop  were  cotton  one  negro  was 
needed  for  every  three  acres  and  these  would 
yield  cotton  to  the  value  of  $240  to  $260.  The 
master  realized  upon  each  negro  employed  at  least 

10Niles'  Reg.,  Sept.  13,  1817;  for  another  such  letter 
see  Ibid.,  October  18,  1817. 

nSmedes :  Memorials  of  a  Southern  Planter,  p.  47. 


28      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

$200  annually.12  The  income  of  some  of  these 
plantations  was  immense.  It  was  not  uncommon 
for  a  planter  in  Mississippi  and  Louisiana  to  have 
an  income  of  $30,000,  and  some  of  them  even 
$80,000  to  $120,000  (i82o).13 

The  enormous  profits  caused  slaves  to  be  very 
high  in  this  section  and  in  great  demand.  There 
were  only  two  possible  sources  of  supply: — first, 
the  illicit  traffic  already  spoken  of;  second,  the 
domestic  slave  trade.  A  good  negro  from  twenty 
to  thirty  years  of  age  would  command  from  $800 
to  $i,2OO.14  Indeed,  it  is  stated  that  at  one  time 
during  this  early  period  they  sold  for  as  much  as 
$2,ooo.15  This  fact  in  connection  with  the  fact 
that  in  1817  the  average  price  of  a  negro  in  Vir 
ginia  was  only  $300,  and  the  depreciation  by  1829 
to  $150,  gives  us  the  reason  for  the  rise  of  the 


12Christian  Scutz :  Travels  on  an  Inland  Voyage,  Vol. 
II,  p.  186. 

David  Blowe:  Geographical,  Commercial  and  Agri 
cultural  View  of  U.  S.,  p.  618. 

13David  Blowe:  Geographical,  Commercial  and  Agri 
cultural  View  of  U.  S.  of  Am.,  p.  643.     (1820?) 

uibid,  p.  618. 

15Claiborne :  Miss,  as  a  Province,  Territory  and  State, 
Vol.  I.,  p.  144. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         29 

domestic  slave  trade.     It  was  over  and  again 
stated  in  the  Virginia  Legislature  of  1832  that  the 
value  of  negroes  in  Virginia  was  regulated  not 
by  their  profitableness  at  home  but  by  the  South 
western  demand.16     The  great  difference  in  the 
price  of  slaves  in  the  buying  States  and  the  sell 
ing  States  was  an  inducement  to  a  certain  class 
of  men  to  engage  in  the  business  of  buying  them 
up  and  carrying  them  South.     The  profits  were 
from  one-third  to  one-half  on  an  average  after 
expenses  were  paid.17  Slave  traders  soon  got  rich. 
Williams,  a  Washington  dealer,  boasted  in  1850 
that  he  made  $30,000  in  a  few  months.18     It  is 
said  the  firm  of  Franklin  &  Armfield,  of  Alexan 
dria,  made  $33,000  in  i829.19    In  1834  Armfield, 
of  this  same  firm,  was  reputed  to  be  worth  nearly 
$500,000  which  he  had  accumulated  in  the  busi 
ness.20  Ingraham  tells  of  a  man  who  had  amassed 

"Mr.  Gholson  in  Va.  Leg.     Richmond  Enquirer,  Jan. 
24,  1832.    Mr.  Goode,  ibid.,  Jan.  19,  1832. 

"(Ingraham)  :  The  Southwest,  Vol.  4,  p.  234. 
Vigne:  Six  Months  in  Am.,  p.  117. 
Alexander:  Transatlantic  Sketches,  p.  230. 
18Liberator,  Sept.  6,  1850. 
"Mary  Tremain :  Slavery  in  D.  C,  p.  50. 
2°Abdy:  Journal  of  a  Residence  and  Tour  in  the  U.  S 
Vol.  II.,  p.  180. 


3O      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

more  than  a  million  dollars  in  this  traffic.21  More 
instances  might  be  given  but  this  is  enough  to 
show  that  the  traffic  was  profitable. 

The  cultivation  of  rice22  and  sugar,  especially 
sugar,  used  up  slaves  rapidly.  As  a  consequence 
slaves  were  in  demand  in  the  rice  and  sugar 
sections,  not  only  because  of  the  expansion  of 
these  industries,  but  to  take  the  place  of  those  that 
died.  In  1829  the  statement  was  made  in  a  re 
port  of  the  Agricultural  Society  of  Baton  Rouge, 
Louisiana,  that  the  annual  loss  of  life  on  well 
conducted  sugar  plantations  was  two  and  one- 
half  per  cent,  more  than  the  annual  increase.  In 
1830,  the  Hon.  J.  L.  Johnson  in  a  letter  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  gave  evidence  of  a 
thorough  study  of  the  subject  and  arrived  at  the 
same  conclusion.23 

We  come  now  to  consider  the  one  thing,  the 
prime  factor,  which  brought  about  the  wonderful 
agricultural  prosperity  of  the  Southwest — cotton. 
Sugar  and  rice  could  only  be  grown  in  certain 


21(Ingraham)  :  The  Southwest.  Vol.  II.,  p.  245. 
23Basil  Hall :  Travels  in  North  America,  218-223. 
23Stcarns:  Notes  on  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  174-5- 


Of   the    Southern    States.         311 

limited  sections.  Rice  principally  in  South  Caro 
lina  and  sugar  in  Louisiana ;  but  the  cotton  field 
came  to  cover  the  larger  part  of  nine  great 
States. 

Until  toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury  the  production  of  cotton  in  this  country  was 
very  small.  In  1793,  however,  Eli  Whitney  in 
vented  his  machine  for  separating  the  seed  from 
the  cotton.  This  soon  revolutionized  the  industry. 
While  the  cotton  crop  of  the  United  States  in 
1793  was  only  5,000,000  pounds,  by  1808  it  had 
increased  to  80,000,000,  and  remained  about  the 
same  or  rather  declined  during  the  war  of  1812, 
but  the  very  year  peace  was  established  its  pro 
duction  went  up  to  100,000,000  pounds,  and  the 
year  following  (1816)  to  125,000,000.  By  1834 
it  had  grown  to  46o,ooo,ooo.24  During  the  whole 
of  this  period,  with  slight  fluctuations,  cotton 
continued  high,  but  after  1835  it  began  to  decline 
and  reached  low-water  mark  at  the  average  price 
of  524  cents  per  pound  in  1845,  which  was 


"Woodbury's  Report:  24th  Cong.,  ist  Sess.    Ex.  Doc. 
146,  p.  7- 


32      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

scarcely  the  cost  of  production.25  However,  the 
crop  of  1839  according  to  the  census  reports  was 
790,479,275  pounds,  nearly  double  the  crop  of 
the  five  years  previous.  During  the  next  decade 
though  the  price  went  up  after  i84526  the  crop 
increased  less  than  200,000,000  pounds  being  only 
987,637,200  in  1849,  but  during  the  following 
ten  years  it  more  than  doubled,  being  2,397,238,- 
140  pounds  in  i859.27  Of  this  enormous  crop  the 
four  States  of  Mississippi,  Alabama,  Louisiana 
and  Georgia  produced  more  than  two-thirds, 
while  Virginia  contributed  about  I-4OO.28  But 
Virginia  and  North  Carolina  in  1801  had  pro 
duced  more  than  two-fifths  of  the  cotton  raised 
in  the  country.  In  1826  when,  according  to  the 
official  reports  they  reached  their  greatest  pro 
duction,  Virginia  grew  25,000,000  pounds  and 
North  Carolina  18,000,000,  or  nearly  five  times 
as  much  as  in  1801,  yet  this  proportion  had  fallen 
to  about  one-seventh.  Eight  years  afterward 


25De  Bow's  Review :  Vol.  XXIII.,  p.  475- 

26Hammond:  Cotton  Ind.,  Ap.  i. 

2?Census  of  1890.    Statistics  of  Agri.,  p.  42. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         33 

Virginia's  crop  had  fallen  to  10,000,000  pounds 
and  North  Carolina's  to  9,5oo,ooo,29  and  their 
production  continued  to  decline.30  Hammond 
says  that  "the  higher  cost  of  raising  cotton  in  the 
more  northern  latitudes,  and  the  uncertainty  of 
the  plant  reaching  maturity  before  the  arrival  of 
the  frosts,  prevented  the  rapid  growth  of  cotton 
culture  in  these  States  after  1830  which  took 
place  elsewhere,  especially  as  the  continual  decline 
in  the  price  of  the  staple  only  emphasized  the  dis 
advantages  under  which  the  planters  of  these 
States  labored/'31 

But  while  decline  was  noticeable  in  the  North 
ern  States,  the  States  at  the  Southwest  were  go 
ing  ahead  by  leaps  and  bounds.  The  same  year 
(1843)  Alabama,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana, 
from  which  no  cotton  had  been  reported  in  1801, 
produced  together  232,000,000  pounds,  while 
South  Carolina  increased  its  crops  from  2,000,000 
to  65,500,000  and  Georgia  from  10,000,000  to 
75,000,000  pounds  during  the  same  time.82 

29Woodbury's  Report,  p.  13. 
80Census,  1890.     Statistics  of  Agri.,  p.  42. 
J1Hammond:  The  Cotton  Industry,  p.  49. 
MWoodbury's  Report,  p.  13. 


34      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

As  the  cotton  field  extended  of  course  the  de 
mand  for  labor  increased  and  that  labor  was 
necessarily  negro  slave  labor,  for  it  was  thought 
that  the  white  man  could  not  endure  work  under 
a  tropical  sun,  while  the  organism  of  the  negro 
was  especially  adapted  to  it.33  As  a  consequence 
negroes  were  secured  from  every  possible  source. 

In  short,  negroes  and  cotton  soon  came  to  be 
inseparably  associated.  The  amount  of  cotton 
that  could  be  raised  depended  upon  the  number 
of  negroes  to  be  secured  to  work  it.  The  value 
of  a  negro  was  measured  by  his  usefulness  in  the 
cotton  field.34  De  Bow  estimated  that  in  1850  out 
of  the  2,500,000  slaves  in  the  Southern  States 
about  i,8oo,ooo35  of  them,  or  nearly  three-fourths 
were  engaged  in  the  cotton  industry,  leaving  for 
all  other  purposes  only  about  700,000,  or  about 
the  same  number  as  there  was  in  the  whole 
United  States  in  1790,  at  which  time  the  produc- 


33Van  Enrie:  Negroes  and  Negro  Slavery,  p.  171. 
Parkinson :  Tour  in  America,  Vol.  II.,  p.  421. 

3401msted:    Cotton  Kingdom.     Vol.  I.,  15-16.     Ibid: 
Seaboard  Slave  States,  p.  278. 

86De  Bow :  Compendium,  7th  Census,  p.  94. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         35 

tion  of  cotton  was  only  1,500,000  pounds.38 
Thus  it  is  seen  that  while  cotton  demanded 
all  the  increase  of  slaves  from  whatever 
source  from  that  time  forward  all  other 
things  merely  held  their  own.  However, 
if  we  subtract  the  number  engaged  in  the  sugar 
industry,  which  was  I5o,ooo37  in  1850  for  the  rea 
son  that  it  was  a  new  crop  developed  during  the 
early  part  of  the  century,38  it  is  noticed  that  other 
things  lost.  From  this  we  conclude  it  was  only 
natural  that  the  surplus  slave  population  of  the 
older  slave  States  where  it  was  useless  was  to 
be  drained  off  to  the  cotton  States.  Some  of  the 
Southern  papers,  notably  the  "Richmond  En 
quirer,"  over  and  again  called  attention  to  the 
relation  of  cotton  and  negroes.  In  1859  it  says: 

"The  price  of  cotton  it  is  well  known  pretty 
much  regulates  the  price  of  slaves  in  the  South, 
and  a  bale  of  cotton  and  a  'likely  nigger'  are  about 
well  balanced  in  the  scale  of  pecuniary  appreci 
ation."39 


36Woodbury's  Report,  p.  7. 
37De  Bow:  Compendium,  7th  Census,  p.  94. 
38Ibid. :  Industrial  Resources,  Vol.  III.,  p.  275. 
39Richmond  Enquirer,  July  29,  1859. 


36      The   Domestic   Slave   Trade 
CHAPTER  III. 

THE  AMOUNT  AND  EXTENT  OF  THE  TRADE. 

WE  have  already  discussed  the  causes  of  the 
domestic  slave  trade.  In  this  chapter  it  is  our 
purpose,  chiefly,  to  consider  its  amount  and  ex 
tent. 

In  this  connection  our  first  object  will  be  to 
determine  whether  it  was  carried  on  as  a  busi 
ness  before  1808.  It  appears  that  there  were  ex 
changes  of  slaves  going  on  among  the  States  and 
territories  before  this  time,  but  whether  this  was 
anything  more  than  of  an  occasional  or  incidental 
nature  is  a  question. 

The  statutes  of  some  of  the  States  give  some 
light  along  this  line.  South  Carolina  in  1792 
prohibited  the  introduction  of  slaves  either  by 
land  or  sea.1  Delaware,  however,  as  early  as 
1787,  passed  a  law  which  recites  that:  "Sundry 
negroes  and  mulattoes,  as  well  freeman  as  slaves, 


*Acts  Gen.  Assembly  of  S.  C.  from  Feb.,  1791,  to  Dec., 
1794,  inclusive,  Vol.  I.,  215. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         37 

have  been  exported  and  sold  into  other  States, 
contrary  to  the  principles  of  humanity  and  justice, 
and  derogatory  to  the  honor  of  this  State." 

This  law  prohibited  their  exportation  without  a 
permit.2  It  seems  to  have  been  something  more 
than  merely  incidental  for  it  was  amended  in  1793, 
as  follows: 

"That  from  and  after  the  first  Tuesday  of 
October  next,  the  justice  of  the  Court  of  General 
Quarter  Sessions  and  Jail  Delivery,  or  any  two 
of  them,  shall  have  the  like  power  to  grant  a 
licence  or  permit  to  export,  sell  or  carry  out  for 
sale,  any  negro  or  mulatto  slave  from  this  State 
that  five  justices  of  the  peace  in  open  Sessions 
now  have."3 

We  have  evidence  to  show  that,  by  1802,  Alex 
andria,  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  had  become 
a  sort  of  depot  for  the  sale  of  slaves,  and  that  men 
visited  it  from  distant  parts  of  the  United  States 
in  order  to  purchase  them.4 

2Hurd:  Law  of  Freedom  and  Bondage,  Vol.  II.,  p. 
74-75- 

sLaws  of  the  State  of  Delaware,  1793,  p.  105. 

4Mr.  Miner,  of  Pennsylvania,  in  a  speech  in  Congress, 
January  6,  1829,  read  the  following  presentment  made 
by  the  Grand  Jury  at  Alexandria  in  1802.  "We  the 


38      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

About  this  time  slaves  were  in  great  demand 
and  very  high  in  Mississippi,5  and  probably,  also, 
in  the  new  States  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.8 
However,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the_greai 
increase  of  the  slave  population  in  these  sections 
before  1815  was  due,  to  any  great  extent,  to  the 
domestic  slave  trade.  There  were  five  causes 
which  may  be  assigned  for  this  increase,  of  which 
the  domestic  trade  was,  probably,  among  the  least, 
if  not  the  least.  No  doubt,  the  most  important 
was  the  immigration  of  slave  holders  with  their 
slaves.7  This  immigration  was  considerable :  the 
white  population  of  Tennessee  and  Kentucky 
nearly  trebled  between  1790  and  1800,  and  be 
tween  1800  and  1810  it  about  doubled,  and  the 


Grand  Jury  for  the  body  of  the  County  of  Alexandria 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  present  as  a  grievance  the 
practice  of  persons  coming  from  distant  parts  of  the 
United  States  into  this  district  for  the  purpose  of  pur 
chasing  slaves." — Gales  and  Seaton's  Register  of  De 
bates  in  Congress,  Vol.  V.,  p.  177.  At  this  time  the 
foreign  slave  trade  was  prohibited  by  statutes  in  all  the 
states. 

5Claibourne :  Mississippi  as  a  Province,  Territory,  and 
State,  Vol.  I.,  p.  144. 

6It  is  to  be  remembered  that  this  was  just  before  the 
opening  of  the  foreign  slave  trade  by  South  Carolina. 

7Monette:  History  of  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
Vol.  II.,  pp.  177-191,  269,  195,  547.  Niles'  Register, 
Sept.  13  and  Oct.  18,  1817. 


-ski 


Of    the    Southern    States.         39 

population  of  Mississippi  more  than  quadrupled 
between  1800  and  1810.  Slaves,  also,  increased 
in  as  great  a  ratio.8  Second,  we  consider  the 
South  Carolina  slave  trade  from  1804  to  J8o7 
inclusive.  From  a  speech  oj  Mr.  Smith  of  South 
overe  sold  in  the  Carolinas,  but  that  the  most  of 
Carolina  in  the  United  States  Senate,  December 
8,  1820,  we  learn  that  only  a  small  part  of  the  j  '^ 

oes  introduced  in  consequence  of  this  trade 
them  were  bought  by  the  people  of  the  Western1" 
and  Southwestern  States  and  territories.9  Third, 
was  the  natural  increase.  Fourth  would  be  the 
illegal  foreign  slave  trade,10  and  fifth  is  the  domes 
tic  trade.  It  is  impossible  to  more  than  approxi 
mate  the  relative  importance  of  these  factors. 

However,  it  seems  very  unlikely  that  the  do 
mestic  trade  was  of  much  consequence  before 
1815.  Whatever  impetus  it  may  have  received  on 
account  of  the  demand  for  slaves  just  prior  to 


8Census  1870.     Population  and  Statistics,  p.  4,  7  (re 
capitulation). 

9Annals   of   Congress,    i6th   Congress,   2nd    Session, 
P.  77- 

10Above  Chap.  I.    Vincent  Nolte,  p.   189.    Am.  Col. 
So.  Reports,  Vol.  L,  p.  94.    Du  Bois,  p.  HI. 


4O      The   Domestic    Slave   Trade 

the  South  Carolina  trade,  must  have  been  checked 
by  the  consequent  heavy  importation  from  abroad. 
For,  on  account  of  this,  slaves  fell  in  price,  as  it 
is  said  adults,  at  this  time,  generally  sold  in  the 
Southwest  at  one  hundred  dollars  each.11 

If  the  domestic  slave  trade  had  assumed  any 
importance,  or  even  if  it  had  been  going  on  at  all 
before  1815,  it  seems  more  than  likely  that  it 
would  have  been  remarked  by  travellers,  many  of 
whom,  both  English  and  American,  visited  the 
Southwest  and  other  sections  of  the  country  dur 
ing  the  period  in  question.  But  so  far  as  we  can 
find,  none  of  them  make  any  mention  of  it  what 
ever.12  The  newspapers  of  the  time,  also,  are 
silent  in  regard  to  the  matter.  Doubtless  the 
rise  and  development  of  the  trade  was  hindered 


"Clay's  Col.  Society  Speech,  Dec.  17,  1829. 

12William  Darby  travelled  all  through  the  South 
western  part  of  the  country  from  about  1805^0  1815, 
and  wrote  two  books:  "A  Geographical  Description  of 
the  State  of  Louisiana,  Mississippi  and  the  Territory  of 
Alabama,  published  in  1817,  and  the  Emigrants'  Guide, 
1818.  He  visited  both  Natchez  and  New  Orleans.  F. 
Cumming  Sketches  of  a  Tour  to  the  Western  Country, 
1807  to  1809.  John  Bradbury :  Travels^  in  the  Interior 
of  America  in  the  years  1809-10-11,  including  a  de 
scription  of  Upper  Louisiana,  together  with  the  Illinois 
and  Western  Territories.  Christian  Scutz:  Travels  on 


Of    the    Southern    States.         41 

or  delayed  by  the  War  of  i8i2,13  but  almost  im 
mediately  after  the  close  of  the  war,  it  comes 
into  notice  and  even  prominence.  In  1816  Pauld- 
ing  in  his  "Letters  from  the  South"  writes  of  it 
from  personal  observation,  and  also  tells  of  a  man 
who  had  even  thus  early  made  money  in  the  busi 
ness.14 

At  this  time,  indeed,  conditions  were  very 
favorable  to  a  growth  of  the  domestic  trade.  The 
general  prosperity  and  the  high  price  of  agricul 
tural  products,  especially  cotton  and  sugar,15 
caused  a  great  demand  for  slave  labor  for  the  new 
and  fertile  lands  of  the  South  and  Southwest.  In 
1817  and  1818  the  buying  up  of  negroes  for  these 
markets  was  fast  becoming  a  regular  business, 
and  it  was  a  very  common  thing  to  see  gangs  of 
them  chained  and  marching  toward  the  South.16 

an  Inland  Voyage  Through  the  States  of  New  York 
Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  Ohio,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and 
through  the  territories  of  Indiana,  Louisiana,  Missis- 
&  an*  N%0rl«!ns  in  the  years  1807,  1808.  Vincent 
Nolte :  Fifty  Years  in  Both  Hemispheres.  And  others 

13Niles'  Reg,  Vol.  XIII,  p.  119,  Oct.  18,  1817. 

14(Paulding)  :  Letters  from  the  South,  pp.  122,  128. 

L5Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  Vol.  VI,  p.  473. 

16Birkbeck:  Notes  on  a  Journey  from  the  Coast  of 
Virginia  to  the  Territory  of  Illinois,  p.  25.  Palmer: 


42      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

They  were  collected  from  various  places  by  deal 
ers  and  shipped  down  the  Mississippi  River  in 
flat-boats.  Fourteen  of  these  loaded  with  slaves 
for  sale  were  seen  at  Natchez  at  once  about  this 
time.17 

The  statement  was  made  that  8,000  slaves  were 
carried  into  Georgia  in  1817  from  the  Northern 
slave  holding  States.18  It  would  seem  probable 
that  the  greater  part  of  these  may  have  been  intro 
duced  by  immigrants.  However,  the  slave  trade 
must  have  been  great,  for  on  December  20,  1817, 
the  Georgia  legislature  passed  a  law  to  prohibit 
at  once  the  importation  of  slaves  for  sale.19 

Between  1810  and  1820  slaves  in  the  four 
States  of  Georgia,  Mississippi,  Tennessee  and 
Louisiana  in  round  numbers  increased  from  202,- 


Journal  of  Travels  in  the  United  States,  p.  142. 
Francis  Hall,  Travels  in  Canada  and  the  United  States, 
P-  358. 

17Fearon:    Sketches  of  America,  p.  268. 

18Facts  Respecting  Slavery,  p.  2  in  (Yale)  Slavery 
Pamphlet,  Vol.  LXI. 

19Acts  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Georgia,  p.  139- 
NOTE. — From  1810  to  1820  slaves  increased  in  Georgia 
about  44,000,  or  43  per  cent.  The  illicit  foreign  traffic 
to  this  State  was  great  during  part  of  this  time.  Torrey 
says  in  1817,  that  it  was  common  for  masters  in  Mary 
land,  Delaware  and  District  of  Columbia  to  endeavor 


Of   the   Southern   States.         43 

ooo  to  332,ooo,20  and  in  some  of  the  other  States 
the  increase  was  about  as  great  During  the 
same  time  the  white  population  in  the  States 
named  increased  from  419,000  to  645,ooo.21  By 
far  the  greater  part  of  this  increase  took  place 
after  1815.  To  prove  this  we  will  take  Louisiana 
as  an  example.  In  1810  she  had  a  population  of 
76,5oo,22  and  in  1815  near  the  close  of  the  year 
her  population,  according  to  Monette,  did  not 
exceed  9o,ooo,23  an  increase  of  only  12,000;  but 
in  1820  it  amounted  to  154,000,  of  which  more 
than  73,000  were  negro  slaves.24  It  appears  that 
the  slaves  in  Louisiana  increased  only  about  2,000 
or  2,500  from  1810  to  1815,  but  between  1815 
and  1820  there  was  an  increase  of  about  37,ooo.2S 
This  wonderful  increase  in  population  in  the  West 
and  Southwest  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  the 

to  reform  bad  slaves  by  threatening  to  sell  them  to 
Georgia.  Torrey:  Portraiture  of  Slavery  in  United 
States,  p.  37. 

2°Census  1870,  Vol.  Pop.  and  Statistics,  p.  7. 

'Ubid.,  p.  4. 

22Ibid,  pp.  4,  6,  7. 

23Monette:     History  of  Mississippi  Valley,  Vol.  II., 

Census  1870.    Pop.  and  Social  Statistics,  pp.  4,  6,  7. 
or1  re  were  in  Louisiana  34,66o  slaves  and 

free  colored  (census  reports) ;  according  to  Mo- 


44      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

fact  that  after  the  close  of  the  War  of  1812  immi 
gration  again  set  in  these  directions,  and,  as  most 
of  the  immigrants  without  doubt  were  from  the 
older  Southern  States,  they  carried  with  them 
the  slaves  which  they  had  in  their  native  States.28 
Another  source  from  which  this  region  received 
slaves  at  this  time  was  through  the  operation  of 
the  illicit  foreign  trade.  It  is  probable  that  10,000 
or  15,000  a  year  were  thus  introduced.27  It  there 
fore  seems  that  up  to  this  time  to  the  domestic 
trade  is  due  probably  only  a  minor  part  of  the 
increase  of  the  slave  population  of  this  section. 

During  the  twenties,  however,  if  we  are  to 
give  credit  to  the  statements  of  travellers,  the 
trade  reached  very  great  proportions.  Baltimore, 
Norfolk,  Richmond,  Washington  and  other  places 
had  already  become  centres.  Agents  were  placed 


nette  (Vol.  II.,  p.  515)  in  1815  there  were  about  45,000 
blacks.  It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  at  least  8,500  of 
these  must  have  been  free  negroes  as  there  were  10,476 
free  negroes  in  Louisiana  in  1820.  (Census  reports.) 

26Monette:  Vol.  IV.,  pp.  281,  433,  444,  445-  Evans: 
A  Pedestrious  Tour,  p.  173.  Niles'  Reg.,  Vol.  XIII., 
pp.  40,  1 19.  Sept.  13,  Oct.  18,  1817. 

27State  Papers,  i6th  Congress,  ist  Session,  Vol.  III., 
Doc.  42.  Niles'  Reg.,  May  2,  1818,  Jan.  22,  1820;  Sept. 
6,  1817.  Wm.  Jay:  Miscellaneous  Writings,  p.  277, 
Chap.  I.  above. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         45 

in  these  cities  to  attend  to  purchase  and  shipment. 
"And  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands,"  such 
is  the  language  of  an  English  tourist,  were  pur 
chased  in  Virginia  and  Maryland  for  sale  in 
Georgia,  Louisiana  and  other  States.28  Blane, 
another  Englishman,  who  visited  the  United 
States  about  the  same  time,  is  more  to  the  point. 

"It  is  computed,"  he  says,  "that  every  year 
from  ten  to  fifteen  thousand  slaves  are  sold  from 
the  States  of  Delaware,  Maryland  and  Virginia 
and  sent  to  the  South/'29 

Basil  Hall  was  informed,  in  1827  or  1828,  that 
during  certain  seasons  of  the  year,  "all  the  roads, 
steamboats  and  packets  are  crowded  with  troops 
of  negroes  on  their  way  to  the  slave  markets  of 
the  South.30  Vessels,  indeed,  from  the  selling 
States  were  sometimes  seen  in  New  Orleans  with 
as  many  as  two  hundred  negroes  aboard.31 

This  transportation  of  negroes  from  the  border 


of  Amer!ca 

'"^  the 

in  North  America,  Vol.   II., 
81Ibid.:  p.  220.    Wiles'  Reg.,  Dec.  27,  1828. 


46      The   Domestic    Slave   Trade 

States  to  the  South  and  Southwest  from  about 
1826  to  1832  may  be  partly  accounted  for  by  the 
probable  falling  off  in  the  illicit  importations32 
and  by  the  fact  that  cotton  and  tobacco,  which 
were  the  staples  of  some  of  the  border  States, 
were  comparatively  low  in  price,33  making  them 
very  unprofitable  crops  to  cultivate  in  these  States. 
The  cotton  raised  in  North  Carolina  and  Virginia 
decreased  almost  half  during  this  time.34  While 
it  appears  as  if  the  lower  price  of  cotton  merely 
had  the  effect  in  the  new  States  to  increase  the 
acreage  in  order  to  make  up  for  the  deficiency 
in  price.  In  the  new  States  there  was  a  wonder 
ful  increase  in  production  during  this  period.35 
Slaves,  therefore,  were  of  much  less  productive 
value  in  the  border  States,  while  in  the  new  States 
the  demand  for  them  was  scarcely  lessened. 

The  "New  Orleans  Mercantile  Advertiser,"  of 
January  21,  1830,  says: 

"Arrivals  by  sea  and  river,  within  a  few  days, 
have  added  fearfully  to  the  number  of  slaves 

32Du  Bois,  p.  128. 

33Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  Vol.  VI.,  p.  473. 

34Woodbury's   Report,   p.    13. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         47 

brought  to  this  market  for  sale.  New  Orleans 
is  the  complete  mart  for  the  slave  trade — and 
the  Mississippi  is  becoming  a  common  highway 
for  the  traffic.36 

In  the  summer  of  1831,  New  Orleans  imported 
371  negroes  in  one  week,  nearly  all  of  whom 
were  from  Virginia.37 

In  the  same  year,  August  1831,  an  insurrection 
of  slaves,  in  which  a  number  of  white  people  were 
murdered,  occurred  in  Southampton  County,  Vir 
ginia.38  This  caused  much  excitement  throughout 
the  slave  States.  It  opened  the  eyes  of  the  people 
to  the  danger  of  a  large  slave  population.  It 
seemed,  for  a  while,  that  it  would  have  a  very 
detrimental  effect  upon  the  domestic  slave  trade, 
for  several  importing  States  began  to  consider 
the  advisability  of  prohibiting  the  further  intro 
duction  of  slaves.  Two  of  the  largest  importing 
States,39  indeed,  passed  such  laws :  Louisiana, 
which,  in  March,  1831,  had  repealed  her  law 

36Quoted  from  the  African  Repository,  Vol.  V.,  p.  381. 
3?Niles'  Reg.,   Nov.   26,   1831. 
38Richmond  Enquirer,  Aug.  30,  1831. 
39Dew:    Debates  in  Virginia  Legislature,  p.  59.     In 
(Yale)  Slav.  Pamp.,  Vol.  XLVII. 


48      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

regulating  the  importation  of  slaves40  in  Novem 
ber  of  the  same  year,  at  an  extra  session  of  her 
legislature  enacted  a  law  against  their  importa 
tion  for  sale.41  And,  in  January,  1832,  Alabama 
followed  suit.42, 

The  Virginia  Legislature  of  1831-2,  also  took 
up  the  question  of  slavery  and  with  open  doors 
vigorously  discussed  methods  of  emancipation, 
and  of  getting  rid  of  the  negro  population.  It  was 
recognized  that  the  value  of  slaves  in  Virginia 
depended  greatly  upon  the  Southern  and  Western 
markets.  It  was  feared  that  other  buying  States 
would  follow  the  lead  of  Louisiana,  thus  cutting 
off  the  outlet  of  Virginia's  surplus  slaves,  and 
while  the  whites  were  constantly  emigrating,  the 
rapidly  increasing  black  population  would  tend 
to  become  congested  in  the  State,  producing  a 
condition  of  society  alarming  to  contemplate.43 

But  these  forebodings  were  far  from  ever  be 
ing  realized.  Indeed,  even  before  the  end  of 

40Acts  Legislature  Louisiana,  1831,  p.  78. 
41Acts  of  Extra  Sess.  of  loth  Leg.  of  Louisiana,  p.  4. 
42Laws  of  Alabama,  1831-2,  p.  12, 
43Slavery    Speeches    in    Virginia    Legislature,    Rich 
mond  Enquirer,  Jan.  19,  21,  24;  March  30,  1832. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         49 

the  year  the  conjunction  of  two  causes  produced 
a  great  demand  for  slaves  and  they  were  soon 
higher  in  price  than  they  had  been  for  years. 
First,  planters  from  the  cotton-growing  States 
visited  Virginia  in  great  numbers  in  order  to 
make  purchases  of  slaves,  doubtless,  thinking 
they  could  buy  cheaply,  as  it  seemed  that  on  ac 
count  of  the  Southampton  Insurrection  Virginia 
was  determined  to  get  rid  of  her  slaves  at  all 
hazards.44  Second,  the  most  important  was  the 
advance  in  price  of  cotton.  This  began,  also, 
in  1832.  It  continued  to  rise  for  several  years 
and  by  1836  it  had  doubled  in  price,45  while  by 
1839  its  production,  also,  had  nearly  doubled. 
This  increase  was  due  almost  wholly  to  the  South 
and  Southwest,  Mississippi  alone  producing 
nearly  one-fourth  of  the  entire  crop.46 

As  a  consequence  we  should  expect  to  note  a 
corresponding  briskness  in  the  slave  trade.  Such, 
indeed,  was  the  case.  We  have  no  reason  to  think 
that  more  slaves  were  ever  exported  to  the  South 

44Dew:      Debate     in     Virginia     Legislature,     p.     50. 
(Yale)  Slav.  Pamp.,  Vol.  XLVII. 
45Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  Vol.  VI.,  p.  473- 
46Census  1890,  Statistics  of  Agriculture,  p.  42. 


$o      fTKe    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

from  the  Northern  slave  States  during  any  equal 
period  of  time  than  there  were  from  1832  to  1836 
inclusive.  Of  these  1836  is  easily  the  banner 
year. 

In  1832  it  was  estimated  by  Prof.  Dew  that  Vir 
ginia  annually  exported  for  sale  to  other  States 
6,000  slaves.47  During  the  thirties,  or  even  before 
the  slave  trade  was  carried  on  between  the  selling 
and  buying  States  with  about  the  same  regularity 
as  the  exchanges  of  cotton,  flour,  sugar  and  rice.48 
Vessels  engaged  in  the  business  advertised  their 
accommodations.  One  trader,  John  Armfield, 
had  three  which  were  scheduled  to  leave  Alexan 
dria  for  New  Orleans,  alternately,  the  first  and 
fifteenth  of  each  month  during  the  shipping  sea 
son.49 

That  the  trade  had  become  extensive  is  evi 
denced  by  the  newspapers.  Up  to  1820  it  was 
very  uncommon  to  find  a  trader's  advertisement 

47Dew:  Debates  in  Virginia  Legislature,  p.  49. 
(Yale)  SI.  Pamp.,  Vol.  XLVII.  Dew  made  this  state 
ment  in  a  paper  in  which  his  argument  required  him  to 
prove  that  the  greatest  possible  number  were  sent  from 
Virginia. 

48Liberator,  May  18,  1833- 

49Daily  National  Intelligencer,  Feb.  10,  1836. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         .5.11 

in  a  newspaper,  but  even  before  1830  such  adver 
tisements  had  become  very  plentiful.  One  could 
hardly  pick  up  a  paper  published  in  the  selling 
States,  especially  those  of  the  Eastern  Shore  of 
Maryland  and  Eastern  Virginia,  without  finding 
one  or  more.  These  advertisements  often  con 
tinued  from  month  to  month  and  from,  year  to 
year.50 

An  example  or  two  may  be  interesting: 
"Cash  for  Negroes : — I  wish  to  purchase  600 
or  700  negroes  for  the  New  Orleans  market,  and 
will  give  more  than  any  purchaser  that  is  now  or 
hereafter  may  come  into  the  market."  Richard 
C.  Woolfolk.51 

"Cash  for  Negroes: — We  will  give  cash  for 
200  negroes  between  the  ages  of  15  and  25  years 
old  of  both  sexes.  Those  having  that  kind  of 
property  for  sale  will  find  it  to  their  interest  to 
give  us  a  call."  Finnall  and  Freeman.52 

50Snow  Hill  (Md.)  Messenger  and  Worcester  Co. 
Advertiser,  May  14,  1832,  Feb.  n,  1833,  March  n, 
1833.  Winyaw  Intelligencer  (S.  C),  Dec.  II,  1803. 
Norfolk  and  Portsmouth  Herald,  Jan.  16,  1826.  Cam 
bridge  Chronicle  (Md.),  Feb.  12,  1831.  Charleston  (S. 
C),  Mercury,  Feb.  18,  1833. 

51Village  Herald  (Princess  Anne,  Md.),  Jan.  7,  1831. 

52The  Virginia  Herald  (Fredericksburg,  Va.),  Jan.  2. 
1836. 


52      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

The  number  of  slaves  currently  estimated  to 
have  been  transported  to  the  South  and  South 
west  during  1835  and  1836  almost  staggers  be 
lief.  The  "Maryville  (Tenn.)  Intelligencer" 
made  the  statement  in  1836  that  in  1835  60,000 
sslaves  passed  through  a  Western  town  on  their 
way  to  the  Southern  market.53  Also,  in  1836,  the 
"Virginia  (Wheeling)  Times"  says,  intelligent 
men  estimated  the  number  of  slaves  exported 
from  Virginia  during  the  preceding  twelve 
months  as  120,000  of  whom  about  two-thirds 
were  carried  there  by  their  masters,  leaving  40,- 
ooo  to  have  been  sold.5*  The  Quarterly  Anti- 
Slavery  Magazine,"  July  1837,  gives  the  "Natchez 
Courier"  as  authority  for  the  estimate  that  during 
1836,  250,000  slaves  were  transported  to  Alabama, 
Mississippi,  Louisiana  and  Arkansas  from  the 
older  slave  States.55  A  committee,  in  1837,  ap 
pointed  by  the  citizens  of  Mobile  to  enquire  into 
the  cause  of  the  prevalent  financial  stringency 
stated  in  their  report  that  for  the  preceding  four 


53Slavery  and  the  Internal  Slave  Trade,  p.  17. 

"Ibid.,  p.  13- 

^Quarterly  Anti- Slavery  Magazine,  Vol.  II.,  p. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         53 

years  Alabama  had  annually  purchased  from  other 
States  $10,000,000  worth  of  slave  property.56 

When  the  panic  of  1837  came  upon  Mississippi, 
it  was  thought,  it  seems,  to  have  been  caused 
through  the  amount  of  money  sent  out  of  the 
State  in  the  purchase  of  slaves,  and  Governor 
Lynch,  upon  the  petition  of  the  people,  convened 
the  legislature  in  extra  session,  and  in  his  message 
to  it  says: 

"The  question  which  presents  itself  and  which 
I  submit  for  your  deliberation  [is] — whether  the 
passage  of  an  act  prohibiting  the  introduction  of 
slaves  into  this  State  as  merchandise  may  not 
have  a  salutary  effect  in  checking  the  drain  of 
capital  annually  made  upon  us  by  the  sale  of  this 
description  of  property."57 

The  panic  of  1837  caused  a  falling  off  in  the 
domestic  slave  trade,  and  the  low  price  of  cotton 
which  continued  until  i84658  hindered  its  revival. 
The  falling  off  in  the  trade  is  shown  by  the  fact 

66S1.  and  Internal  SI.  Trade,  p.  14.  Christian  Free 
man,  July  24,  1845. 

67The  Mississippian,  April  21,  1837. 
58Hammond:  The  Cotton  Industry,  Appendix  I.    DC 
Bow's  Review,  Vol.  XXIII.,  p.  475. 


54      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

that  the  per  cent,  of  increase  in  the  slave  popula 
tion  of  the  cotton  States  was  scarcely  half  as 
great  between  1840  and  1850  as  during  the  previ 
ous  decade.59  The  slave  trade,  however,  seems 
to  have  become  brisker  in  1843,  for  while  only 
2,000  slaves  are  said  to  have  been  sold  in  Wash 
ington  in  1842,  in  1843,  5,000  were  sold  there.80 
It  does  not  necessarily  follow,  however,  that  all 
these  were  sent  South.  The  increased  number 
of  sales  was  caused  by  two  things :  the  decline 
in  the  price  of  tobacco,61  and  the  renewed  activity 
in  the  sugar  industry  incident  upon  a  new  duty 
on  sugar.62  This  gave  rise  to  a  demand  for  slave 
labor  upon  the  sugar  plantations  of  the  South, 
but  it  was  a  very  limited  demand.  During  this 
period  the  decline  in  the  value  of  slaves  was  great 
in  some  States,63  and  it  appears  very  probable 
there  was  a  general  depreciation  in  value.  How 
ever,  before  1850  three  important  things  had 
happened,  each  of  which  had  an  effect  upon  the 

»De  Bow's  Review,  Vol.  XXIIL,  p.  477- 
60Emancipator,  Oct.  26,  and  Nov.  26,  1843. 
61De  Bow :  Industrial  Resources,  Vol.  III.,  p.  349. 
«2Ibid. :  p.  275.     Emancipator,  Oct.  26,  1843. 
"Liberator,  May  19,  1837,  May  24,  31,  1839,  April  30, 
1847. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         55 

slave  trade.  First,  the  admission  of  Texas,  De 
cember,  1845  ;  second,  the  gradual  increase  in  the 
price  of  cotton  after  1845  J  third,  the  discovery 
of  gold  in  California.  The  first  opened  a  large 
cotton  country  to  development  and  the  required 
slave  labor  could  be  legally  supplied  only  from 
the  United  States.  The  rise  in  cotton  which  con 
tinued  almost  uniformly  until  i86o64  caused  a  new 
impetus  to  be  given  to  its  culture,  and  the  dis 
covery  of  gold  in  California  infused  new  life 
into  all  the  channels  of  trade. 

In  a  few  years,  indeed,  after  1845,  the  demand 
for  slaves  seems  to  have  been  greater  than  the 
supply.  A  writer  in  the  "Richmond  Examiner," 
in  1849,  says: 

"It  being  a  well  ascertained  fact  that  Virginia 
and  Maryland  will  not  be  able  to  supply  the  great 
demand  for  negroes  which  will  be  wanted  in  the 
South  this  fall  and  next  spring,  we  would  advise 
all  who  are  compelled  to  dispose  of  them  in  this 
market  to  defer  selling  until  the  sales  of  the  pres 
ent  crop  of  cotton  can  be  realized  as  the  price 
then  must  be  very  high  owing  to  two  reasons : 

"Hammond:  Cotton  Industry,  Appendix  I. 


56      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

First,  the  ravages  of  the  cholera,  and  secondly, 
the  high  price  of  cotton."65 

Indeed,  during  the  fifteen  years  prior  to  1860 
the  demand  for  slaves  became  so  great  that  it 
caused  an  increase  of  one  hundred  per  cent,  in 
their  price.68  However,  there  was  not  a  great  in 
crease  in  the  domestic  slave  trade.  According  to 
a  custom  house  report  there  were  shipped  from 
Baltimore  in  a  little  less  than  two  years,  in  1851 
and  1852  only  1,033  negroes.67  This  is  certainly 
not  a  large  showing  though  it  is  probable  a  great 
many  were  sent  overland  to  the  South  from  this 
place  during  the  same  time. 

In  a  speech  before  the  Southern  Convention  at 
Savannah  in  1856,  Mr.  Scott,  of  Virginia,  made 
the  statement  that  not  more  than  half  the  lands 
in  the  sugar  and  cotton-growing  States  had  been 
reduced  to  cultivation,  and  that  all  the  valuable 
slaves  in  Virginia,  Maryland,  Kentucky  and  Mis 
souri  would  be  required  to  develop  them.68  But  at 
this  time  the  prosperity  of  the  latter  militated 

^Quoted  from  the  National  Era,  Sept  27,  1849. 
««De  Bow's  Review,  Vol.  XXVI.,  p.  649. 
«7Key  to  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  p.  149. 
«8De  Bow's  Review,  Vol.  XXIL,  pp.  216-218. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         57; 

against  the  transfer  of  labor  to  the  cotton-growing 
States.  Probably  the  conditions  in  the  border 
States  is  best  described  by  quoting  from  a  writer 
in  "De  Bow's  Review"  in  1857 : 

"The  difficulty,"  he  says,  "of  procuring  slaves 
at  reasonable  rates,  has  already  been  severely 
felt  by  the  cotton  planters,  and  this  difficulty  is 
constantly  increasing.  The  production  of  rice, 
tobacco,  wheat,  Indian  corn,  etc.,  with  stock 
raising,  in  those  States  affords  nearly  as  profita 
ble  employment  for  slave  labor  as  cotton  planting 
in  other  States.  They  have  not,  as  is  generally 
supposed,  a  redundancy  of  slave  labor,  nor  are 
they  likely  to  have  so  long  as  their  present  pros 
perity  continues. 

"The  recent  full  development  of  the  rich  agri 
cultural  and  mineral  resources  of  these  States, 
indeed,  by  an  immense  demand  for  their  staple 
productions,  have  not  only  given  profitable  em 
ployment  to  slave  labor,  but  has  improved  the 
pecuniary  condition  of  the  slave  owner  and 
placed  him  above  the  necessity  of  parting  with  his 
slave  property."60 

YYTTTA'  M°rse»  of  Louisiana,  De  Bow's  Review   Vol 
XXIII.,  p.  480.    NoTE.-The  statement  wafS  by  a 


58-      The   Domestic   Slave   Trade 

Even  Olmsted,  inadvertedly,  no  doubt,  gives 
evidence  of  the  prosperity  of  Virginia,  a  little 
before  this  time,  when  he  says  that  in  the  tobacco 
factories  of  Richmond  and  Petersburg  slaves  were 
in  great  demand  and  received  a  hundred  and  fifty 
to  two  hundred  dollars  and  expenses  a  year.70  In 
North  Carolina,  also,  good  hands  would  bring 
about  the  same  wages.71 

Though  the  labor  market  in  the  border  States 
was  greater  than  the  natural  increase  of  the  negro, 
yet  it  was  hardly  to  be  compared  to  the  Southern 
demand.  As  a  consequence,  when  debt,  or  neces 
sity,  or  other  reason,  compelled  the  sale  of  slaves, 
they  were  often  bought  by  traders  and  exported.72 
The  statement  was  made  by  Mr.  Jones,  of  Geor 
gia,  in  the  Savannah  Convention,  1856,  that  ne 
groes  were  even  then  worth  from  $1,000  to  $i,- 
500  each,  and  that  there  were  ten  purchasers  to 
one  seller.73 


South  Carolina  delegate  to  the  Southern  Convention 
at  Montgomery  in  1858,  that  Virginia  was  then  the  best 
market  in  the  Union  for  the  slaves  of  his  State.  De 
Bow's  Review,  Vol.  XXIV.,  p.  595. 

70Olmsted:  Seaboard  Slave  States,  p.  127. 

71Liberator,  Jan.  12,  1855. 

72De  Bow's  Review,  Vol.  XXVI.  p.  650. 

"IbdA :  Vol.  XXIL,  p.  222. 


Of   the   Southern   States,         59 

Indeed,  so  great  was  the  demand  for  slaves  at 
this  time  that  the  advisability  of  reopening  the 
African  slave  trade  became  one  of  the  principal 
topics  of  discussion  in  Southern  Agricultural 
and  Commercial  Conventions.74  In  fact,  the 
Vicksburg  Convention,  1859,  passed  a  resolution 
in  favor  of  reopening  the  African  trade.75 

The  New  Orleans  newspapers  during  all  this 
period  give  evidence  of  the  domestic  trade.     It 
was  very  common  during  the  shipping  season  to 
see  advertisements  to  the   effect  that  the  sub 
scriber,  a  negro  trader,  had  received,  or  had  just 
arrived  from  Virginia,  Maryland,  the  Carolinas 
or  elsewhere,  with  a  large  lot  of  negroes  which 
were  offered  for  sale.    Usually  the  number  would 
be  given  as  fifty,  seventy-five,  or  even  a  hundred. 
This  would  be  qualified  by  the  statement  that  they 
would  be  constantly  receiving  fresh  lots.     The 
same  advertisement  would  continue  in  the  same 
paper  for  months  and  even  years.     Sometimes 
half  a  dozen  of  these  could  be  found  in  a  single 

74De  Bow's  Review,  Vol.  XVIIL,  p.  628-  Vol 


60      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

issue  of  a  paper.  It  would  be  impossible  even  to 
approximate  from  this  source  the  number  sold 
during  any  given  time,  for  it  is  likely  the  number 
offered  for  sale  bore  but  little  relation  to  the 
actual  number  sold.  The  States  of  Maryland, 
Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  were  most  conspicuous 
in  these  advertisements.76 

Writers  on  the  subject  seem  to  be  pretty  well 
agreed  that  during  this  period,  or  during  the  fif 
ties,  about  25,000  slaves  were  annually  sold 
South  from  the  Northern  slave  States.77 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  in  this  connection 
what  the  Census  Reports  have  to  show.  But  in 
reading  it  should  be  remembered  that  no  account 
is  taken  of  the  sale  of  slaves  except  as  they  took 
place  between  the  buying  and  selling  States.  So 
the  sale  of  slaves  between  Virginia  and  Maryland 


76New  Orleans  Picaynne,  Jan.  8,  15,  1846;  Feb.  3, 
Dec.  10,  1856;  Jan.  7,  14,  1858;  Dec.  31,  1859. 

77Stimner's  Works,  Vol.  V.,  p.  62;  Olmsted,  Cotton 
Kingdom,  Vol.  I.,  (note)  p.  58.  Chambers:  Slavery 
and  Color,  p.  148.  Chase  and  Sanborn :  The  North  and 
the  South,  p.  22. 

NOTE.— The  estimate  of  60,000  given  in  Hunt's  Mer 
chants'  Magazine  is  scarcely  worth  consideration. 
Hunt's  Magazine,  Vol.  XLIII.,  p.  642. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         61 

are  not  indicated  nor  those  between  Mississippi 
and  Alabama. 

The  slave  population  of  Alabama,  Arkansas, 
Georgia,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  South  Carolina, 
Tennessee  and  Missouri  in  1820  was  in  round 
numbers  644,000,  in  1830  997,000  being  an  in 
crease  of  353,000.  The  slave  population  in  the 
selling  States  of  Virginia,  Maryland,  Delaware, 
North  Carolina,  Kentucky  and  the  District  of 
Columbia  at  the  same  periods78  was  873,000  and 
993,000  respectively,  being  an  increase  in  these 
States  of  120,000.  Total  increase  of  slaves  in 
both  sections  during  the  decade,  473,000,  from 
which  we  deduct  50,000  due  to  the  illicit  foreign 
traffic,79  leaving  423,000  from  natural  increase 
or  about  28  per  cent.  Had  the  selling  States  in 
creased  at  this  ratio,  instead  of  120,000  their  in 
crease  would  have  been  244,000.  This  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  at  least  12,400  annually 
were  carried  South  during  this  decade.  How 
ever,  only  the  smaller  part  of  these,  and  those  of 
the  following  decade  as  well,  were  transported 

79See  Chap.   I.,  this  volume. 
78Census  1820  and  1830. 


62      The    Domestic    Slave    Trade 

through  the  operation  of  the  domestic  slave  trade. 
Mr.  P.  A.  Morse,  of  Louisiana,  writing  in  1857, 
says  that  the  augmentation  of  slaves  within  the 
cotton  States  was  caused  mostly  by  the  migration 
of  slave  owners.80  The  "Virginia  Times,"  in 
1836,  says  of  the  number  of  slaves  exported  dur 
ing  the  preceding  twelve  months  "not  more  than 
one-third  have  been  sold,  the  others  having  been 
carried  by  their  owners  who  have  removed.81  We 
conclude  from  these  and  other  sources82  that  at 
least  three-fifths  of  the  removals  of  slaves  from 
the  border  slave  States  to  those  farther  South 
from  1820  to  1850  were  due  to  emigration.83 


8°De  Bow's  Review,  Vol.  XXIII.,  p.  476. 

81Slavery  and  the  Internal  Slave  Trade,  p.  13. 

82 Andrews:  SI.  and  Domestic  SI.  Trade,  pp.  174,  171, 
117,  167.  Smedes:  Memorials  of  a  Southern  Planter, 
pp.  48-50.  Gary:  Slave  Trade,  Domestic  and  Foreign, 
p.  109.  (Ingraham)  :  The  Southwest,  Vol.  II.,  p.  233. 

We  have  not  taken  into  account  the  slaves  brought 
by  planters  themselves  independently  of  the  traders. 
See  Dew's  "Debates,"  Pro-Slavery  Argument,  p.  361. 

83Other  things  which  perhaps  ought  to  be  considered, 
but  which  do  not  seem  to  modify  results  are  mentioned 
in  this  note ;  i.e.,  the  mortality  on  the  sugar  plantations 
(Stearns*  Notes  on  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  pp.  174-5) >  and 
the  deaths  caused  by  removal  of  slaves  from  a  north 
ern  climate  (Olmsted:  Journey  in  the  Back  Country, 
122;  Chambers:  Slavery  and  Color,  147-8).  Negroes 
advertised  for  sale  in  the  far  South  were  often  adver- 


Of   the    Southern    States.         63 

iThus  it  is  shown  that  probably  5,ooo84  slaves  were 
annually  exported  by  the  selling  States  from  1820 
to  1830  by  means  of  the  domestic  trade. 

In  the  next  decade  adding  Florida  to  the  buy- 


tised  as  acclimated  (Mississippi  Republican,  Sept.  17, 
1823;  Daily  Picayune,  Jan.  30,  1856).  To  offset  the 
loss  of  life  thus  caused  it  is  well  to  remember  that  the 
increase  of  slaves  carried  to  the  South  was  not  taken 
into  account,  but  treated  as  if  they  too  were  carried 
there.  For  instance,  1,000  slaves  imported  in  1830 
would  at  a  20  per  cent,  rate  of  increase  number  1,200 
by  1840,  or  to  take  the  middle  date  1835,  1,100.  So 
each  1,000  slaves  brought  in  during  the  decade  would 
increase  by  100.  If  40,000  were  introduced  by  the  illi 
cit  foreign  traffic  between  1830  and  1840,  and  106,000  by 
the  trade  from  the  border  States,  it  would  mean  a  nat 
ural  increase  of  14,600  for  the  ten  years.  This  it  seems 
would  offset  both  the  deaths  on  the  sugar  plantation, 
and  those  caused  by  removal  to  another  climate. 

Next  to  be  considered  are  refugees  and  manumitted 
slaves;  Miss  Martineau  said  that  there  were  about 
10,000  negroes  in  Upper  Canada  about  1838,  chiefly 
fugitive  slaves  (W.  Travel.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  101).  The 
Census  of  1860  reports  that  (Vol.  Pop.  XVI.)  1,011 
slaves  escaped  in  1850,  and  only  803  in  1860,  and  that 
the  slave  population  increased  in  slave  states  more  than 
20  per  cent,  during  the  10  years,  and  free  colored  popu 
lation  in  the  free  States  only  about  13  per  cent.  It  is 
estimated  in  De  Bow's  Industrial  Resources  (Vol.  III., 
p.  129)  that  about  1,540  annually  escaped.  (For  other 
estimates  see  Seibert  Underground  R.R.,  pp.  192,  221 
et  seq.) 

The   Census   of   1860   reports  that  more  than   3,000 

84This  about  accords  with  Alexander,  who  said  that 
by  means  of  the  internal  trade  about  4,000  or  5,000 
arrived  in  the  Southern  States  annually.  Transat 
lantic  Sketches,  p.  230. 


64      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

ing  State  and  transferring  South  Carolina85  and 
Missouri86  to  the  selling  list,  we  find  that  in  1830 
and  in  1840  the  buying  States  had  672,000  and 
1,127,000  respectively,  being  an  increase  of  455,- 
ooo;  while  for  the  same  periods  the  selling 
States  had  1,333,000  and  1,361,000,  being  an  in- 


were  manumitted  in  census  year  of  1860,  but  this  was 
more  than  twice  as  many  as  in  1850.  (1860  Vol.  Pop., 
p.  XV.).  To  offset  the  fugitive  slaves  and  those  manu 
mitted  the  following  is  given:  kidnapped  free  negroes 
from  a  few  hundred  to  two  or  three  thousand  yearly 
(below,  p.  )  ;  free  negroes  sold  into  slavery  for  jail 
fees,  etc.  (Liberator,  Nov.  19,  1841,  July  17,  1834; 
Speech  of  Mr.  Miner  in  Congress  Jan.  7,  1829;  (Sturge: 
A  Visit  to  the  U.  S.,  p.  101)  voluntary  return  to  slavery 
— many  States  made  laws  before  1860  to  provide  for 
such  action  on  the  part  of  the  slaves.  (Hurd,  Vol. 
II.,  p.  12,  24,  94,  et  seq.). 

The  things  as  mentioned  above  do  not  modify  the 
amount  of  the  domestic  slave  trade  as  indicated  by  the 
statistical  review  in  the  text.  If  one  should  argue  that 
the  allowances  we  have  made  are  not  sufficient,  we 
would  ask  him  to  take  notice  also  that  it  is  more  than 
probable  that  most  of  the  manumissions  and  escapes 
from  slavery  were  in  the  border  States,  and  to  that 
extent  lessens  the  amount  of  the  apparent  slave  trade. 
It  is  impossible  to  be  definite  here,  we  can  only  ap 
proximate. 

85Between  1830  and  1840  the  number  of  increase  in 
South  Carolina  was  only  about  12,000,  while  during  the 
previous  decade  it  was  about  57,000,' if  for  no  other 
reason  showing  her  to  be  an  exporting  State. 

86Shaffner:  The  War  in  America,  p.  256.  (Ingra- 
ham)  :  The  Southwest,  Vol.  II.,  p.  237.  It  was  rather 
hard  to  determine  whether  Missouri  should  be  classed 


Of    the    Southern    States.         65 

crease  of  28,000.  The  whole  increase,  therefore, 
was  483,000,"  deducting  40,000  due  to  illicit  for 
eign  trade,88  we  have  443,000  or  about  22  per  cent. 
as  the  natural  increase.  Had  the  selling  States 
increased  at  same  rate  it  would  have  been  293,- 
ooo  for  the  decade.  Deducting  28,000  we  find 
that  265,000  can  be  accounted  for  only  as  having 
been  exported.  Deducting  three-fifths  for  emi 
gration  we  have,  removing  106,000  for  the  domes 
tic  traffic,  an  average  of  10,600  per  year. 

By  1850,  the  buying  States  had  another  in 
crease  of  478,000  and  the  selling  States  180,000. 
Total  increase  from  1840  to  1850,  658,ooo.89  De 
ducting  50,000  illicitly  imported,90  we  have  606,- 
ooo  or  about  24  per  cent,  total  increase.  Accord 
ingly  the  selling  States  should  have  a  natural  in 
crease  of  326,000.  Deducting  the  actual  number 


wjtj1  selling  or  buying  States.  It  is  likely  she  did  some 
of  both  as  did  some  others.  But  practically  all  her  in 
crease  after  1830  at  least  (aside  from  natural  increase) 
seemed  to  be  due  to  immigration  from  Kentucky  and 
Virginia,  though  her  increase  was  very  large,  we  think 
she  would  rank  as  a  selling  State  anyhow  after  1830. 

87Census  1830  and  1840. 

88Chap.   I.,  this  volume. 

^Census  1840  and  1850. 

*°Chap.  I.,  this  volume. 


66      The   Domestic    Slave   Trade 

we  have  left  146,000,  which  must  have  been  tians- 
ported.  Deducting  three-fifths  on  account  of 
emigration,  there  would  remain  about  58,000  or 
nearly  6,000  per  year  for  the  domestic  trade. 

Adding  Texas  to  the  buying  States  in  1850, 
they  then  have  1,663,000,  and  in  1860  2,296,- 
ooo,  or  an  increase  of  633,000  during  the  de 
cade.  And  the  selling  States  1,541,000  and 
1,657,000  respectively,  being  an  increase  of  116,- 
ooo.  Total  increase  749,ooo.91  Deducting  70,000 
which  were  brought  in  by  illicit  trade92  we  have 
a  remainder  of  679,000  or  21  per  cent,  natural 
increase.  From  natural  increase  selling  States 
should  have  had  207,000  more  than  the  actual. 
Deducting  three-fifths  on  account  of  emigration 
leaves  a  little  more  than  8,000  per  year  sold  South 
annually  for  these  ten  years. 

It  is  very  probable  that  the  emigration  to  the 
cotton  States  fell  off  during  the  fifties  owing  to 
the  great  prosperity  in  the  border  States,  and  it 
might  be  fair  to  reduce  the  number  estimated 
to  have  been  carried  South  by  emigration  to  one- 

91Census  1850  and  1860. 
^Chap.  I.,  this  volume. 


Of    the    Southern    States,         67 

third  or  one-half,  which  would  leave  ten  or  twelve 
thousand  per  year  for  the  domestic  slave  trade. 

We  feel  quite  confident  that  this  statistical  re 
view  of  the  domestic  slave  trade,  based  as  it  is 
upon  the  Census  Reports,  gives  a  truer  idea  of  the 
actual  amount  of  the  trade  between  the  selling 
and  the  buying  States  than  could  be  got  from  any 
other  sources. 


68      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 


CHAPTER  IV 

WERE    SOME    STATES    ENGAGED    IN    BREEDING    AND 
RAISING  NEGROES  FOR  SALE? 

As  we  now  have  a  somewhat  definite  idea  as 
to  the  amount  of  the  domestic,  slave  trade  the 
next  questions  which  naturally  claim  our  atten 
tion  are :  Were  some  States  consciously  and  pur 
posely  engaged  in  breeding  and  raising  negroes 
for  the  Southern  market,  and  also,  what  were  the 
sources  of  supply  for  the  trade?  The  former  of 
these  queries  is,  no  doubt,  the  most  controverted 
and  difficult  part  of  our  subject. 

The  testimony  of  travellers  and  common  opin 
ion  generally  seems  to  have  been  in  the  affirma 
tive.  A  quotation  or  two  will  suffice  to  show  the 
trend :  The  Duke  of  Saxe  Weimar  says,  "Many 
owners  of  slaves  in  the  States  of  Maryland  and 
Virginia  have  .  .  .  nurseries  for  slaves 
whence  the  planters  of  Louisiana,  Mississippi 


Of    the    Southern    States.         69 

and  other  Southern  States  draw  their  supplies/'1 
In  a  "Narrative  of  a  Visit  to  the  American 
Churches,"  the  writer,  in  speaking  of  the  accumu 
lation  of  negroes  in  the  Gulf  States,  says :  ."Slaves 
are  generally  bred  in  some  States  as  cattle  for 
the  Southern  market."2  And  the  Rev.  Philo 
Tower,  writing  about  twenty  years  later  draws  a 
more  vivid  picture.  '/Not  only  in  Virginia,"  he 
says,  "but  also  in  Maryland,  North  Carolina, 
Kentucky,  Tennessee  and  Missouri,  as  much  at 
tention  is  paid  to  the  breeding  and  growth  of 
negroes  as  to  that  of  horses  and  mules.  .  .  . 
It  is  a  common  thing  for  planters  to  command 
their  girls  and  women  (married  or  not)  to  have 
children ;  and  I  am  told  a  great  many  negro  girls 
are  sold  off,  simply  and  mainly  because  they  did 
not  have  children."3 

Bernard,  Duke  of  Saxe  Weimar,  Travels  Through 
North  America,  1825-26,  Vol.  II.,  p.  63. 

2Reed  and  Matheson :  Visit  to  the  Am.  Churches, 
Vol.  II.,  p.  173. 

3Tower :  Slavery  Unmasked,  p.  53.  NOTE.— "The  fol 
lowing  story  was  told  me  by  one  conversant  with  the 
facts  as  they  occurred  on  Mr.  J.'s  plantation,  contain 
ing  about  iqo  slaves.  One  day  the  owner  ordered  all 
the  women  into  the  barn;  he  followed  them  whip  in 
hand,  and  told  them  he  meant  to  flog  them  all  to  death ; 
they,  as  a  matter  of  course,  began  to  cry  out,  'What 


'V\* 


70      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

Undoubtedly  some  planters  in  all  the  slave 
States  resorted  to  questionable  means  of  increas 
ing  their  slave  stock,  but  that  it  was  a  general 
custom  to  multiply  negroes  in  order  to  have  them 
to  sell  is  very  improbable. 

Many  of  these  travellers  show  prejudice.  We 
have  wondered,  therefore,  whether  it  were  too 
much  to  assume  that  they  had  more  thought  for 
the  effect  their  narrative  would  produce  in  the 
North  or  in  England  than  for  its  truth.  Is  it  not 
probable  that  foreigners  may  have  got  their  in 
formation  about  breeding  slaves  when  in  the  free 
States  rather  than  actual  evidence  of  such  an 
industry  where  the  industry  was  supposed  to  be 
carried  on?  It  seems,  at  any  rate,  more  than 


have  I  done,  Massa?'  'What  have  I  done,  Massa?'  He 
replied :  'Damn  you,  I  will  let  you  know  what  you  have 
done ;  you  don't  breed.  I  have  not  had  a  young  one 
from  you  for  several  months.'  They  promptly  told 
him  they  could  not  breed  while  they  had  to  work  in  the 
rice  ditches." 

Slavery  Unmasked  was  published  in  1856.  Exactly 
the  same  storv  as  above,  almost  verbatim^  is  found  in 
"Interesting  Memoirs  and  Document?  Relating  to  Amer 
ican  Slavery,"  published  in  1846.  The  fact  that  this 
story  is  told  in  different  books  published  ten  years 
apart  indicates  that  such  instances  were  very  rare. 
It  seemed  strange  that  each  writer  should  claim  to  have 
received  the  story  from  a  friend,  or  "one  conversant 


Of   the    Southern    States.         71 

probable  that  the  exceptional  cases  which  they 
found  were  made  to  appear  as  the  general  rule. 
Then,  too,  the  very  fact  that  some  States  sold 
great  numbers  of  slaves  was  sufficient  evidence 
to  some,  no  doubt,  that  they  were  engaged  in  the 
business  of  raising  them  for  sale.  It  seems  very 
natural  that  this  should  be  inferred.  Conse 
quently  travellers  reported  that  certain  sections 
were  engaged  in  breeding  and  raising  slaves  for 
market.  They  made  the  accusation  that  the  so- 
called  "breeding  States"  were  in  the  slave-breed 
ing  business  for  profit.  But  was  it  profitable? 
If  not,  why  were  they  in  this  business? 

A  negro  above  eighteen  years  of  age  would 
bring  on  an  average  about  $300  in  the  selling 
States  from  1815  to,  say,  1845.  Sometimes  he 
would  bring  a  little  more,  sometimes  less.4  Be- 

with  the  facts,"  for  one  seems  to  have  copied  directly 
from  the  other.  It  was  no  doubt  mere  hearsay  with 
both  writers. 

Others  on  slave  breeding  are :  Buckingham :  Slave 
btates  of  America,  Vol.  L,  p.  182;  Miss  Martineau: 
Society  m  America,  Vol.  II.,  p.  41.  Jay;  Miscellaneous 
Writings,  p.  457.  Abdy:  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  the 
United  States,  Vol.  II.,  p.  90.  Rankin :  Letters  on 
American  Slavery,  p.  35.  Candler:  A  Summary  View 
of  America,  p.  277.  Kemble:  Journal  of  a  Residence 
on  a  Georgian  Plantation,  pp.  60,  122. 


72      The   Domestic   Slave   Trade 

tween  the  age  of  ten  and  the  time  of  sale  we  will 
suppose  the  slave  paid  for  his  keeping.  But  be 
fore  that  time  he  would  be  too  small  to  work. 
There  was  always  some  defective  stock  which 
could  not  be  sold  ;5  this,  taken  in  connection  with 
the  fact  that  all  negroes  did  not  live  to  be  ten 
years  of  age,  probably  not  more  than  half,6  we 
shall  be  under  the  necessity  of  deducting  about 
one-half  of  the  $30x3  on  this  account.  This  will 
leave  $150  or  $15  per  year  for  the  possible  ex 
pense  of  raising  him.  A  bushel  of  corn  a  month 
would  have  been  about  $8  per  year  for  corn; 
fifty  pounds  for  meat  $4.  It  is  not  likely  he  could 
have  been  clothed  for  less  than  $3,  and  the  $15  is 
gone,  with  nothing  left  for  incidentals.  We  think 
the  above  a  very  fair  estimate.  In  1829  the  aver- 


4Proceedings  and  Debates  of  the  Virginia  State  Con 
stitutional  Convention,  1829-30,  p.  178.  Dew:  Debates 
in  Virginia  Legislature,  1831-2.  Pro-Slavery  Argu 
ment,  p.  358.  Andrews :  Domestic  Slave  Trade,  p.  77. 

5Chambers:  Am.  Slavery  and  C.  Laws,  p.  148. 

6Kemble :  Journal  of  a  Residence  on  a  Georgia  Plan 
tation,  pp.  190,  191,  199,  204,  214,  215.  We  get  from 
these  that  out  of  about  74  born  42  died  very  young. 

7Stuart:  Three  Years  in  North  America,  Vol.  II., 
p.  103.  He  says  it  cost  $35  per  year  to  feed  and  clothe 
an  adult  negro  a  year.  Must  cost  half  that  much  for  ?. 
young  one. 


Of   the    Southern    States.         73 

age  price  of  negroes  in  Virginia  was  estimated 
at  only  $150  each.8 

Why  did  not  the  border  slave  States  raise  hogs 
instead  of  negroes?  Bacon  was  at  a  good  price 
during  that  period.9 

The   fact   is   the   negroes   probably   increased 
without    any    consideration    for    their    master's 
wishes  in  the  matter.    A  planter  could  stop  raising 
hogs  whenever  he  might  choose,  but  it  seemed  to 
be  hardly  within  the  province  of  the  master  to 
limit  the  increase  of  his  negroes.    And  the  better 
they  were  treated  evidently  the  faster  the  in 
crease.     A  man  who  had  one  or  two  hundred 
negroes,  and  had   scruples  about  selling  them, 
unless  he  should  be  able  to  add  to  his  landed 
estate  as  they  increased  was  in  a  bad  predicament. 
It  seems  some  such  men  had  the  welfare  of  their 
negroes  at  heart  and  used  every  means  to  keep 
them.    Andrews  tells  of  one  : 

"A  gentleman,"  he  says,  "in  one  of  the  poorer 
counties  of  Virginia  has  nearly  200  slaves  whom 
he  employs  upon  a  second  rate  plantation  of 


p     of  virginia  state 

9Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  Vol.  VL,  p.  473. 


74      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

8,000  or  10,000  acres,  and  who  constantly  brought 
him  into  debt,  at  length  he  found  it  necessary 
to  purchase  a  smaller  plantation  of  good  land  in 
another  county  which  he  continues  to  cultivate 
for  no  other  purpose  than  to  support  his 
negroes.10 

Sometimes  men  who  were  in  prosperous  cir 
cumstances  would  buy  land  as  fast  as  their  slaves 
increased  and  settle  them  upon  it.11 

Slaves  were  seldom  sold  until  they  were  over 
ten  years  of  age,12  consequently  if  it  were  true 
that  the  border  States  made  a  business  of  breed 
ing  and  raising  them  for  sale  we  should  naturally 
expect  to  find  in  these  States  a  much  greater  pro 
portion  under  ten  than  in  the  buying  States.  To 
determine  the  truth  of  this  we  shall  have  re 
course  to  the  Census  Reports.  The  States  of 
Virginia,  Maryland,  Kentucky  and  North  Caro 
lina,  in  1830,  had,  in  round  numbers  984,000 
slaves,  of  which  349,000  were  under  ten  years  of 
age,  and  635,000  over.  This  shows  that  in  these 


10 Andrews:   Slavery  and  the  Domestic  Slave  Trade, 
p.  119- 

"Chambers :  Am.  Slavery  and  Color,  p.  194. 
"Ibid.,  p.  148. 


Of   the   Southern   States.         75 

States  there  were  182  over  ten  years  of  age  to 
every  100  under  ten.  Taking  an  equal  number 
of  the  principal  cotton-growing  and  slave-buying 
States,  say,  Georgia,  Mississippi,  Alabama  and 
Tennessee,  we  find  that  they  had  346,000  over  ten 
and  196,000  under  ten,13  consequently  for  every 
176  of  the  former  they  had  100  of  the  latter. 
Therefore,  at  this  time,  the  principal  so-called 
"slave-breeding"  States  had  a  smaller  number  of 
slaves  under  ten  years  than  an  equal  number  of 
buying  States.  The  numbers,  it  will  be  seen, 
differ  as  the  ratios  100-182  and  100-176. 

In  1840  there  were  in  the  Southern  States  about 
2,486,000  slaves,  of  whom  about  844,000  were 
under  ten  years  of  age,  on  an  average,  therefore, 
of  100  under  ten  to  every  194  over.  Taking  each 
State  separately  we  find  that  Virginia  had  just 
an  average,  having  100  of  the  former  to  194  of  the 
latter;  Maryland,  100  to  every  203;  Delaware, 
100  to  218;  District  of  Columbia,  100  to  280; 
Kentucky,  100  to  179;  North  Carolina,  100  to 
176;  Missouri,  100  to  172;  South  Carolina,  100 
to  2°5 ;  Louisiana,  100  to  267;  Mississippi,  100 

"Census  of  1830, 


76      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

to  206;  Florida,  100  to  220;  Georgia,  100  to 
188;  Arkansas,  100  to  195;  Tennessee,  100  to 
170  and  Alabama,  100  to  igo.14  Thus  it  is  shown 
that  the  buying  States  of  Alabama,  Georgia  and 
Tennessee  each  had  more  children  in  proportion 
to  their  slave  population  than  Virginia;  and  that 
Maryland  and  Delaware  had  about  the  same 
proportion  as  the  buying  States  of  Mississippi, 
Florida  and  Arkansas.  It  would  hardly  be  fair, 
however,  to  compare  the  District  of  Columbia 
with  Louisiana. 

In  1860  we  find  that  the  proportion  of  slave 
children  under  ten  years  of  age  is  much  less  in 
all  the  States  than  in  i84O.15  In  Virginia,  at  this 
time,  there  were  100  under  ten  years  to  227  over 
that  age;  Delaware  100  to  233;  Maryland,  100 
to  229;  Kentucky,  100  to  204;  South  Carolina, 
100  to  224;  North  Carolina,  100  to  202; 
Missouri,  100  to  190;  Georgia,  100  to  221; 
Louisiana,  100  to  285;  Mississippi,  100  to 
242;  Texas,  TOO  to  209;  Arkansas,  100  to  219; 


14Census  of   1840. 

^We  do  not  know  why  unless  it  is  because  slaves 
being  higher  more  care  was  taken  of  them,  which  as 
a  consequence  caused  them  to  live  longer. 


Of   the    Southern    States.         77 

Tennessee,  100  to  200;  Alabama,  100  to  221  and 
Florida  100  to  224.16  This  schedule  shows  that 
the  buying  States  which  had  a  greater  number 
of  slave  children  in  proportion  to  their  slave  popu 
lation  in  1860,  than  Virginia,  Maryland  and  Dela 
ware,  were  Georgia,  Arkansas,  Tennessee,  Ala 
bama,  Texas,  and  Florida. 

It  is  noticeable  in  both  schedules  that  the  State 
of  Louisiana  is  an  exception.  The  proportion 
of  children  there  was  much  less  than  in  the  other 
States.  This  is  probably  due  to  the  strenuous 
work  on  sugar  plantations.  It  is  also  noticeable 
that  the  Western  States  had  the  greatest  propor 
tional  number  of  children,  which  is  to  be  ac 
counted  for  by  the  healthfulness  of  the  climate 
and  by  its  being  a  rich  and  prosperous  farming 
section,  where  negroes  were  well  fed  and  proba 
bly  free  from  the  malarial  ailments  of  some  other 
sections.  The  conditions,  therefore,  were  very 
favorable  to  the  prolific  negro  race. 

We  think  it  would  be  only  natural  that  one 
should  expect  to  have  found  in  Virginia  and 

16For  data  upon  which  these  arguments  are  based  see 
Census  Reports  of  1830,  1840,  and  1860. 


78      TKe   Domestic   Slave   TraHe 

Maryland,  which  have  had  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the 
accusation  of  breeding  slaves,  the  greatest  propor 
tion  of  children;  not  only  because  of  the  reiter 
ated  accusations,  but  also  on  account  of  the  ex 
portation  of  adult  slaves  from  these  States,  which 
had  the  tendency  to  heighten  the  proportion  of 
children  in  these  States  and  lessen  it  in  the  States 
to  which  slaves  were  carried. 

With  regard  to  slave  breeding,  Shaffner,  a 
native  of  Virginia,  says :  "From  our  own  personal 
observation,  since  we  were  capable  of  studying 
the  progress  of  human  affairs,  we  are  of  opinion 
that  there  is  less  increase  of  the  slaves  of  the 
so-called  'breeding  States/  than  of  the  more 
Southern  of  Gulf  States.17  "We  doubt  if  there 
exists  in  America  a  slave  owner  that  encourages^ 
the  breeding  of  slaves  for  the  purpose  of  selling 
them.  Nor  do  we  believe  that  any  man  would 
be  permitted  to  live  in  any  of  the  Southern  States 
that  did  intentionally  breed  slaves  with  the  object 
of  selling  them.18 

Southerners  generally  have  denied  the  accusa- 


"Shaffner:  The  War  in  America,  p.  256. 
"Ibid.,  p.  296. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         79 

tion.  When  Andrew  Stevenson,  of  Virginia,  was 
minister  to  England,  he  was,  upon  one  occasion, 
taunted  by  Daniel  O'Connell  with  belonging  to  a 
State  that  was  noted  for  breeding  slaves  for  the 
South.  He  indignantly  denied  the  charge.19  And 
in  1839  the  editor  of  the  "Cincinnati  Gazette"  was 
much  abused  for  asserting  that  Virginia  bred 
slaves  as  a  matter  of  pecuniary  gain.20 

Nehemiah  Adams,  a  clergyman,  went  South  in 
the  early  fifties  biased  against  slavery,  but  says, 
"the  charge  of  vilely  multiplying  negroes  in  Vir 
ginia  is  one  of  those  exaggerations  of  which  the 
subject  is  full,  and  is  reduced  to  this:  that  Vir 
ginia  being  an  old  State  fully  stocked,  the  sur 
plus  black  population  naturally  flows  off  where 
their  numbers  are  less.21 

It  would  seem  that  these  States  are  not  only 
practically  freed  from  the  charge  of  multiplying 
slaves  and  raising  them  for  market  as  a  business, 
but  that,  as  a  rule,  they  did  not  sell  their  slaves 


19Annual   Report  of  Am.   and  Foreign  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  1850,  p.  108. 

2°Ibid. 

21Nehemiah  Adams :   Southern  View  of  Slavery,  p.  78. 


8o     The   Domestic   Slave   Trade 

unless  compelled  to  do  so  by  pecuniary  or  other 
embarrassments. 

Probably  many  planters  were  as  conscientious 
about  their  slaves  as  Jefferson  appears  to  have 
been.  In  a  letter  he  says: 

"I  cannot  decide  to  sell  my  lands.  I  have 
sold  too  much  of  them  already,  and  they  are  the 
only  sure  provision  for  my  children,  nor  would 
I  willingly  sell  the  slaves  as  long  as  their  remains 
any  prospect  of  paying  my  debts  with  their 
labor/'22 

It  seems  that  he  was  finally  compelled  to  sell 
some  of  them.23  Madison  parted  with  some  of  his 
best  land  to  feed  the  increasing  numbers  of 
negroes,  but  admitted  to  Harriet  Martineau  that 
the  week  before  she  visited  him  he  had  been 
obliged  to  sell  a  dozen  of  them.24  And  Estwick 
Evans,  who  made  a  long  tour  of  the  country  in 
1818,  says,  "I  know  it  to  be  a  case,  that  slave 
holders,  generally,  deprecate  the  practice  of  buy- 


22Ford:    Jefferson's   Works.     Vol.    VI.,   pp.    416-417. 
23Ford :   Jeff.  Works.  Vol.  VI.,  p.  214. 
24Martineau:     Retrospect    of    Western    Travel,    Vol. 
II.,  P.  5- 


Of    the    Southern    States.         8 1 

ing  and  selling  slaves."25  No  doubt,  the  planters 
were  always  glad  to  get  rid  of  unruly  and  good- 
for-nothing  negroes,  and  these  were  pretty  sure 
to  fall  into  the  hands  of  traders.26  The  slave 
traders  had  agents  spread  over  the  States,  where 
slaves  were  less  profitable  to  their  owners,  in 
readiness  to  take  advantage  of  every  opportunity 
to  secure  the  slaves  that  might  in  any  way  be  for 
sale.  They  would,  even  when  an  opportunity 
occurred,  kidnap  the  free  negroes.  They  also 
sought  to  buy  up  slaves  as  if  for  local  and  domes 
tic  use  and  then  would  disappear  with  them.27 
And  it  was  a  common  occurrence  for  plantations 
and  negroes  to  be  advertised  for  sale.  In  one 
issue  of  the  "Charleston  Courier"  in  the  winter 
of  1835  were  advertised  several  plantations  and 
about  1,200  negroes  for  sale.28  At  such  sales 
negro  traders  and  speculators  from  far  and  near 
were  sure  to  be  on  hand  attracted  by  the  prospect 
of  making  good  bargains.29 

25Evans :    A   Pedestrious   Tour,   p.   216. 
26Olmsted:    Seaboard  Slave  States,  p.  392. 
27Reed  and  Matheson :    Narrative  of  a  Visit  to  the 
American  Churches,  Vol.  II.,  p.  173. 
28Charleston  Courier  (S.  C),  Feb.  12,  1835. 
29Sequel    to    Mrs.    Kemble's    Journal,    p.    i     (Yale) 


82      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

Probably  we  could  not  better  close  this  chapter 
than  with  a  quotation  from  Dr.  Baily,  who  was 
editor  of  the  "National  Era,"  a  moderate  anti- 
slavery  paper.  It  appears  to  us  that  he  correctly 
and  concisely  sums  up  the  whole  matter : 

"The  sale  of  slaves  to  the  South,"  he  says,  "is 
carried  on  to  a  great  extent.  The  slave  holders 
do  not,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  raise  them  for  that 
special  purpose.  But  here  is  a  man  with  a  score 
of  slaves,  located  on  an  exhausted  plantation.  It 
must  furnish  support  for  all ;  but  while  they  in 
crease,  its  capacity  of  supply  decreases.  The  re 
sult  is  he  must  emancipate  or  sell.  But  he  has 
fallen  into  debt,  and  he  sells  to  relieve  himself 
of  debt  and  also  from  the  excess  of  mouths.  Or 
he  requires  money  to  educate  his  children ;  or  his 
negroes  are  sold  under  execution.  From  these 
and  other  causes,  large  numbers  of  slaves  are  con 
tinually  disappearing  from  the  State.  .  .  . 

"The  Davises  in  Petersburg  are  the  great  slave 
dealers.  They  are  Jews,  who  came  to  that  place 
many  years  ago  as  poor  peddlers.  .  .  .  These 

Slavery  Pamphlet,  Vol.  XVII.  De  Bow's  Review,  Vol. 
XXTV.,  p.  595.  Liberator,  Sept.  7,  1860;  also  May  6, 
1853- 


Of    the    Southern    States.         83; 

men  are  always  in  the  market,  giving  the  highest 
price  for  slaves.  During  the  summer  and  fall 
they  buy  them  up  at  low  prices,  trim,  shave,  wash 
them,  fatten  them  so  that  they  may  look  sleek 
and  sell  them  to  great  profit.  .  .  . 

"There  are  many  planters  who  cannot  be  per 
suaded  to  sell  their  slaves.  They  have  far  more 
than  they  can  find  work  for,  and  could  at  any 
time  obtain  a  high  price  for  them.  The  tempta 
tion  is  strong  for  they  want  more  ntoney  and 
fewer  dependents.  But  they  resist  it,  and  nothing 
can  induce  them  to  part  with  a  single  slave, 
though  they  know  that  they  would  be  greatly 
the  gainers  in  a  pecuniary  sense,  were  they  to 
sell  one-half  of  them."30 


30National  Era,  June  10,  1847. 


84      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  KIDNAPPING  AND  SELLING  OF  FREE  NEGROES 
INTO  SLAVERY. 

VIRGINIA,  as  early  as  1753,  enacted  a  law 
against  importation  of  free  negroes  for  sale  and 
stealing  of  slaves.1  In  1 788  another  law  was  passed 
against  kidnapping.  It  recited  that  several  evil- 
disposed  persons  had  seduced  or  stolen  children 
or  mulatto  and  black  free  persons ;  and  that  there 
was  no  law  adequate  for  such  offenses.  This 
law  made  the  penalty  for  such  a  crime  very 
severe.  Upon  conviction  the  offender  was  to 
suffer  death  without  benefit  of  clergy.2  North 
Carolina  had  already  (1779)  enacted  a  law,  with 
the  same  penalty,  against  stealing  slaves  and 
kidnapping  free  negroes.8 

The  other   Southern   States   which   had   laws 


iHening :  Statutes  at  Large,  Vol.  VI.,  p.  357- 
2Ibid,  Vol.  XII.,  p.  53i. 

3Laws  of  State  of  North  Carolina.    Revised  Under 
Authority  of  the  General  Assembly,  Vol.  I.,  p.  375- 


Of   the    Southern   States.         85 

against  kidnapping  are:  Alabama,4  Maryland,5 
Mississippi,6  Missouri,7  Florida,8  South  Caro 
lina,9  Arkansas,10  Tennessee,11  Louisiana,12  Geor 
gia.13  Delaware,  however,  had  the  most  interest 
ing  as  well  as  very  severe  laws  against  kidnap 
ping.  That  of  1793  required  that  any  one  guilty 
of  kidnapping  or  of  assisting  to  kidnap  free 
negroes  or  mulattoes  should  be  whipped  with 
thirty-nine  lashes  on  the  bare  back,  and  stand 
in  the  pillory  with  both  of  his  ears  nailed  to  it, 


4Acts  of  General  Assembly  of  Alabama,  1840-41,  p. 
125. 

6Maxcy:  Revised  Laws  of  Maryland,  Vol.  II.,  p.  356 
(1811).  Dorsey:  General  Public  Statuary  Law,  Vol. 

I.,    p.    112. 

6Hutchinson:  Code  of  Mississippi  (1798  to  1848), 
p.  960.  Revised  Code  of  Mississippi,  Authority  of  Leg 
islature  (1857),  p.  603. 

7Laws  of  State  of  Missouri  Revised  by  Legislature 
(1825),  Vol.  I,  p.  289. 

8Laws  of  Florida,  1850-51,  p.  132-3. 

9Laws  of  South  Carolina,  1837,  p.  58. 

10English:  Digest  of  Statutes  of  Arkansas  (1848) 
Authority  of  Leg.  Chap.  LI.,  p.  333. 

nHurd :  Law  of  Freedom  and  Bondage,  Vol.  II.,  p.  92. 

12Laws  of  a  Public  and  General  Nature  of  the  Dis 
trict  of  Louisiana,  of  Territory  of  Louisiana  and  Ter 
ritory  of  Missouri  and  State  of  Missouri  to  1824  (passed 
Oct.  i,  1804). 

"Kurd:  Vol.  II.,  p.  106. 


86      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

and  when  he  came  out  to  have  their  soft  parts 
cut  off.14  In  1826  the  penalties  were  made  even 
more  severe :  $1,000  fine,  pillory  one  hour,  to  be 
whipped  with  sixty  lashes  upon  the  bare  back, 
to  be  imprisoned  from  three  to  seven  years,  at 
trie  expiration  of  which  he  was  to  be  disposed  of 
as  a  servant  for  seven  years,  and  upon  second 
conviction  to  suffer  death.15  In  1831  Congress 
passed  a  law  to  prevent  the  abduction  and  sale 
of  free  negroes  from  the  District  of  Columbia.16 

It  is  quite  evident  from  these  laws  that  kid 
napping  was  a  very  common  crime.  It  does  not 
appear,  however,  that  they  prevented  it. 

Even  as  early  as  1817  it  was  estimated  by  Tor- 
rey,  who  seems  to  have  made  a  study  of  the  sub 
ject,  that  several  thousand  legally  free  persons 
were  toiling  in  servitude,  having  been  kid 
napped.17 

Free  negro  children  were  the  ones  who  were 

^Laws  of  State  of  Delaware,  Oct.  14,  1793-  Hurd, 
Vol.  IV.  p.  76. 

"Passed  Feb.  8,  1826.     Laws  of  Delaware,  Vol.  VI, 

p.  715. 

isStatutes  at  Large,  Vol.  V.,  p.  450. 

"Jessie  Torrey:  A  Portraiture  of  Domestic  Slavery, 
P.  57. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         87 

most  liable  to  be  kidnapped,18  for  the  reason 
probably  that  they  were  easier  managed  and  less 
likely  to  have  about  them  proofs  of  their  free 
dom,  though  sometimes,  indeed,  even  white  chil 
dren,  whether  being  mistaken  for  negroes  or  not, 
were  stolen  and  sold  into  slavery.19 

More  than  twenty  free  colored  children  were 
kidnapped  in  Philadelphia  in  i825.20  It  is  stated 
that  some  persons  gained  a  livelihood  by  steal 
ing  negroes  from  the  towns  of  the  North  and 
carrying  them  to  the  South  for  sale.21  State 
ments  similar  to  the  following  are  often  to  be 
met  with  in  the  papers  published  in  slavery 
times  : 

"Four  negro  children,  18,  17,  9  and  5  years 
respectively—first  two  girls;  last  two  boys- 
were  kidnapped  and  carried  off  from  Gallatin 


Liberator:    May  18,  1849.  Niles'  Reg.,  Feb.  25,  1826. 
19Emancipator,  March  8,  1848 

Catechism-p-  i4-  (Yaie): 


AmHi;  The  Eastern  and  Western  States  of 
America,    Vol.    I.,   p.    n.    Niies>    Reg     Oct     ,g      g  g 

^V852'    Aufr    J*    I857-    Alexander 
Sketches,  p.  230. 


88      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

County,  Illinois,  on  the  evening  of  5  ult.  The 
father  .  .  .  was  tied  while  the  children 
were  taken  away.  The  kidnapping  gang  is  reg 
ularly  organized  and  is  increasing.  The  mem 
bers  are  well  known  but  cannot  be  punished  on 
account  of  the  disqualification  of  negroes  as  wit 
nesses/'22 

"About  midnight  on  the  27th  of  September 
a  party  of  8  or  10  Kentuckians  broke  into  the 
house  of  a  Mr.  Powell,  in  Cass  County,  Michi 
gan,  while  he  was  absent.  They  drew  their  pis 
tols  and  bowie  knives  and  dragged  his  wife  and 
three  children  from  their  beds,  and  bound  them 
with  cords  and  hurried  them  off  to  their  covered 
wagons  and  started  post  haste  for  Kentucky."23 

Probably  kidnapping  was  carried  on  even  more 
extensively  in  the  slave  States  themselves.  "The 


22Liberator,  May  18,  1849. 

23Ibid.,  Nov.  23,  1849.  Other  cases:  Liberator,  July 
31,  1846;  Sept.  5,  1845;  Oct.  i,  1852;  Dec.  3,  1841;  Aug. 
14,  1857;  Aug.  15,  1856;  April  25,  1835;  Jan.  10,  1835; 
May  7,  1835;  Nov.  6,  1846;  Niles'  Reg.,  Sept.  27,  1817; 
Jan.  31.  1818;  May  23,  1818;  July  4.  1818;  Dec.  12, 
1818;  Feb.  25,  1826;  June  28,  1828.  W.  Faux,  Memor 
able  Days  in  America,  p.  277.  Several  of  these  as  given 
took  place  in  slave  States. 


Of   the    Southern    States.         89 

Liberator,"   quoting   from   the   "Denton    (Md.) 
Journal"  in  1849  says: 

"Three  free  negro  youths,  a  girl  and  two  boys, 
were  kidnapped  and  taken  from  the  County  with 
intent  to  sell  them  to  the  South.     .     .     .     They 
had  been  hired  for  a  few  days  by  Mr.  James  T. 
Wooters,  near  Denton,  for  the  ostensible  purpose 
of  cutting  cornstalks.    After  being  a  day  or  two 
in  Mr.   Wooters'  employ  they  suddenly  disap 
peared.     .     .     .     Enquiry  being  set  on   foot,  it 
was,  after  some  days  discovered  that  they  had 
been    secretly   carried   through    Hunting    Creek 
towards  Worcester  County,  thence  to  Virginia. 
We  learn  that  the  Negroes  are  now  in  Norfolk."24 
They  were  carried  to  Richmond  where  they 
were  sold  as  slaves,  but  were  finally  recovered.25 
Notwithstanding  the  harshness  of  the  Dela 
ware  laws  against  kidnapping  and  the  convic 
tions26  under  them,  the  business  of  kidnapping 
seems  to  have  flourished  there.    A  quotation  or 
two  will  illustrate: 

"Two  young   colored   men,    free   born,   were 

^Liberator,  April  27,  1849. 
,  June  8,  1849. 


,          . 

xT<?irt*}  Carolina  Standard,  June  21,  1837 
Niles'  Register,  April  25,  1829. 


90      The   Domestic    Slave   Trade 

stolen  from  Wilmington  a  few  nights  ago  and 
taken,  it  is'  supposed,  to  some  of  the  Southern 
slave  markets.  .  .  .  Fifty  or  sixty  persons 
it  is  said,  have  been  stolen  from  the  lower  part  of 
the  State  in  the  last  six  months."27 

In  1840  the  "Baltimore  Sun"  said:  "A  most 
villainous  system  of  kidnapping  has  been  exten 
sively  carried  on  in  the  State  of  Delaware  by  a 
gang  of  scoundrels  residing  there,  aided  and 
abetted  by  a  number  of  confederates  living  on 
the  Eastern  Shore  of  this  State."28 

While  discussing  kidnapping  in  Delaware,  it 
is  very  unlikely  we  should  forget  to  mention 
probably  the  most  notorious  kidnapping  gang 
which  the  domestic  slave  trade  produced.  The 
principal  character  of  the  gang,  and  the  one  from 
which  it  seems  to  have  drawn  its  inspiration,  and 
the  one  from  which  it  took  its  name — was  a  wo 
man — in  looks  more  like  a  man  than  a  woman — 
Patty  Cannon  by  name — well  known  by  tradition 


27The  Christian  Citizen,  Dec.  21,  1844.    Quoting  from 
Penn.  Freeman. 

28Liberator,  Feb.  21,  1840. 


Of   the    Southern    States.         91 

to  every  Delawarian  and  Eastern  Shore  of  Mary- 
lander.  A  son-in-law  of  hers  was  hanged  for  the 
murder  of  a  negro  trader.  His  widow  then  mar 
ried  one  Joe  Johnson  who  became  a  noted  char 
acter  in  the  business  of  kidnapping  through  the 
aid  and  instruction  of  his  mother-in-law,  Patty 
Cannon.  Johnson  was  convicted  once  and  suf 
fered  the  punishment  of  the  lash  and  pillory. 
The  grand  jury  in  May,  1829,  found  three  indict 
ments  for  murder  against  Patty  Cannon,29  but 
she  died  in  jail  May  n,  of  the  same  year.30 

White  kidnappers  sometimes  used  free  colored 
men  as  tools  by  means  of  which  to  ensnare  other 
free  colored  men,  and  shared  with  them  the 

29Niles'  Weekly  Reg.,  April  25,  1829.  Quoting  from 
Del.  Gazette  of  April  17.  American  Annual  Register, 
1827-8-9,  Vol.  III.,  p.  123. 

30Niles'  Register,  May  23,   1829. 

Note  on  P.  Cannon.  George  Alfred  Townsend 
wrote  a  romance  of  about  700  pages,  entitled  "The  En 
tailed  Hat,  or  Patty  Cannon's  Times,"  in  which  Patty 
Cannon  is  one  of  the  principal  characters.  It  is  a  very 
interesting  and  instructive  story.  Townsend  was  a 
native  of  Delaware  and  well  qualified  to  write  such  a 
story.  He  says  in  the  introduction:  "Often  had  she 
told  him  of  old  Patty  Cannon  and  her  kidnapping  den 
and  her  death  in  the  jail  of  his  native  town.  He  found 
the  legend  of  that  dreaded  woman  had  strengthened 
instead  of  having  faded  with  time,  and  her  haunts  pre 
served,  and  eye  witnesses  of  her  deeds  to  be  still  living. 


92      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

profits  of  the  trade.31  Indeed,  the  free  colored 
men  seem  not  to  have  been  much  averse  in  aiding 
in  the  enslavement  of  their  "brethren."  They 
sometimes  even  formed  kidnapping  bands  of  their 
own  and  pursued  the  business  without  the  aid 
of  white  men.  Such  a  gang  as  this  once  operated 
near  Snow  Hill,  Maryland.  It  is  said  to  have 
kidnapped  and  sent  off  several  hundred  free 
negroes.32 

Kidnappers  devised  various  schemes  for  \\\e 
accomplishment  of  their  purposes,  some  of  them 
no  less  humorous  than  infamous.  A  man  in 
Philadelphia  was  found  to  be  engaged  in  the  oc 
cupation  of  courting  and  marrying  mulatto  wo- 

"Hence,  this  romance  has  much  local  truth  in  it 
and  is  not  only  the  narrative  of  an  episode,  but  the 
story  of  a  large  region,  comprehending  three  State 
jurisdictions." 

"  Tatty  Cannon's  dead ;  they  say  she's  took  poison/ 
"A   mighty   pain    seized    the    Chancellor's   heart,    and 
the  loud   groans   he  made  called   a   stranger   into  the 
room. 

"'Is  that  dreadful  woman  dead?'  sighed  the  Chan 
cellor. 

"  'Yes ;  she  will  never  plague  Delaware  again,  Mar- 
ster.' 

"'God  be  thanked!'  the  old  man  groaned." 

"Entailed  Hat/'  p.  541. 

81Liberator:     Sept.    14,    1849;   Jan.    10,    1835. 
32Niles'  Register,  April  10,  1824;  Oct.  10,  1818. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         93 

men  and  then  selling  them  as  slaves.83  Another 
plan  was  for  one  or  two  confederates  to  find  out 
the  bodily  marks  of  a  suitable  free  colored  per 
son  after  which  the  other  confederate  would  go 
before  a  magistrate  and  lay  claim  to  the  ill-fated 
negro,  describing  his  marks,  call  in  his  accomplice 
as  witness  and  so  get  possession  of  the  negroes.34 

Probably  the  most  ingenious  of  all  methods 
of  kidnapping  was  that  brought  to  light  in 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  as  related  by  Francis 
Hall: 

"The  agents  were  a  justice  of  the  peace,  a  con 
stable  and  a  slave  dealar.  ...  A  victim 
having  been  selected,  one  of  the  firm  applied  to 
the  justice  upon  a  shown  charge  of  assault,  or 
similar  offense,  for  a  writ,  which  was  immediately 
issued  and  served  by  the  constable,  and  the  negro 
conveyed  to  prison.  .  .  .  The  constable 
now  appears,  exaggerates  the  dangers  of  his  situ 
ation,  explains  how  small  is  his  chance  of  being 
liberated  even  if  innocent,  by  reason  of  the 


33Jessie    Torrey:    A    Portraiture    of    Domestic    Sla 
very,  p.  57. 


94      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

amount  of  jail  fees  and  other  legal  expenses ;  but 
he  knows  a  worthy  man  who  is  interested  in  his 
behalf,  and  will  do  what  is  necessary  to  procure 
his  freedom  upon  no  harder  condition  than  an 
agreement  to  serve  him  for  a  certain  number  of 
years.  It  may  be  supposed  the  negro  is  persuad 
ed.  ...  The  worthy  slave  dealer  now  ap 
pears  on  the  stage,  the  indenture  of  bondage  is 
ratified  in  the  presence  of  the  worthy  magistrate 
and  the  constable,  who  shares  the  price  of  blood, 
and  the  victim  is  hurried  on  shipboard  to  be  seen 
no  more/'35 

From  the  nature  of  our  information  concerning 
kidnapping  it  is  readily  seen  that  we  have  but 
little  basis  for  a  statistical  estimate  of  the  num 
ber  kidnapped.  It  must  have  ranged,  however, 
from  a  few  hundred  to  two  or  three  thousand 
annually.  It  appears  quite  certain  that  as  many 
were  kidnapped  as  escaped  from  bondage,  if  not 
more. 

The  "Liberator"  alone  records  nearly  a  hun 
dred  cases  of  detected  kidnapping  between  1831 


35Francis  Hall :    Travels  in  Canada  and  the  United 
States,  p.  425. 


Of   the    Southern    States.         95 

and  1860.  But  the  number  detected  probably 
bears  but  little  relation  to  the  number  actually 
kidnapped.  As  was  before  shown  in  the  cases 
mentioned  almost  whole  families  were  carried 
off,  and  that  in  most  cases,  when  a  discovery  was 
made,  it  was  found  that  the  kidnapping  gang 
had  been  in  the  business  for  years. 


96      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 


CHAPTER   VI. 

SLAVE  "PRISONS,"  MARKETS,  CHARACTER  OF  TRAD- 
DERS,  ETC. 

IN  all  the  large  towns  and  cities  were  slave 
"prisons"  or  "pens"1  in  which  slaves  were  kept 
until  enough  for  a  drove  or  shipment  could  be 
collected.2  The  slave  prisons  ranged  all  the  way 
from  a  rude  whitewashed  shed3  to  large  and  com 
modious  establishments  accommodating  hundreds 
of  slaves.  A  description  of  one  of  these — The 
Franklin  and  Armfield  prison  which  was  in  Alex 
andria — by  Andrews  is  rather  interesting: 

f"The    establishment,"    he    says,     .     .     .     "is 
j 

situated  in  a  retired  quarter  in  the  southern  part 
of  the  city.  It  is  easily  distinguished  as  you 
approach  it,  by  the  high,  whitewashed  wall  sur- 


iFeatherstonhaugh :  Excursion  Through  the  Slave 
States,  Vol.  L,  p.  128. 

2Liberator:  Feb.  16,  1833.  Buckingham:  Slave 
States,  Vol.  II.,  p.  485- 

3Reed  and  Matheson:  Visit  to  Am.  Churches,  Vol. 
L,  p.  32. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         97 

rounding  the  yards  and  giving  to  it  the  appear 
ance  of  a  penitentiary.  The  dwelling  house  is  of 
brick,  three  stories  high,  and  opening  directly 
upon  the  street;  over  the  front  door  is  the  name 
of  the  firm.  .  .  . 

"We  passed  out  of  the  back  door  of  the  dwell 
ing  house  and  entered  a  spacious  yard  nearly  sur 
rounded  with  neatly  whitewashed  two  story 
buildings,  devoted  to  the  use  of  the  slaves.  Turn 
ing  to  the  left  we  came  to  a  strong  grated  door 
of  iron  opening  into  a  spacious  yard  surrounded 
by  a  high  whitewashed  wall,  one  side  of  this  yard 
was  roofed,  but  the  principal  part  was  open  to 
the  air.  Along  the  covered  side  extended  a  table, 
at  which  the  slaves  had  recently  taken  their  din 
ner,  which,  judging  from  what  remained,  had 
been  wholesome  and  abundant.  .  .  .  The 
gate  was  secured  by  strong  padlocks  and  bolts."4 

Such  was  the  slave  prison  of  one  of  the  largest 
and  most  prosperous  slave-dealing  firms. 

There  were  many  dealers  who  had  no  place  of 
their  own  in  which  to  keep  slaves,  but  were  de- 


4Andrews:  Slavery  and  the  Domestic  Slave  Trade, 
PP.  I3S-7. 


98      The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

pendent  upon  the  "prisons"  of  others.5  Indeed, 
at  Washington,  the  city  public  prison  was  often 
used  by  negro  traders  as  a  place  of  safety  for 
their  slaves.  The  keeper  was  paid  by  the  traders 
for  the  privilege.6  This  practice  continued  a  great 
number  of  years.  In  1843  tne  Poet  Whittier  thus 
describes  the  prison : 

"It  is  a  damp,  dark  and  loathsome  building. 
We  passed  between  two  ranges  of  small  stone 
cells  filled  with  blacks.  We  noticed  five  or  six 
in  a  single  cell  which  seemed  scarcely  large 
enough  for  a  solitary  tenant.  The  heat  was  suffo 
cating.  In  rainy  weather  the  keeper  told  us  that 
the  prison  was  uncomfortably  wet.  In  winter 
there  could  be  no  fire  in  these  cells.  The  keeper 
with  some  reluctance  admitted  that  he  received 
negroes  from  the  traders  and  kept  them  until  they 
were  sold,  at  thirty-four  cents  per  day."7 

While,  no  doubt,  some  traders  kept  their 
"prisons"  in  as  good  condition8  as  circumstances 

5Sturge:  A  Visit  to  the  United  States,  p.  107. 
6Miner:  Speech  in  Congress,  Jan.  6,  1829. 
Gales   and    Seaton's    Register   of   Debates    in   Con 
gress,  Vol.  V.,  p.  167. 

7Whittier:  A  Letter  in  Emancipator,  Nov.  23,  1843. 
8Andrews:  Slavery  and  the  Domestic  Trade,  p.  164. 


Of    the    Southern    States.         99 

would  allow,  there  were  others,  and  probably  the 
majority,  who  did  not.  A  Northern  minister  de 
scribes  those  at  Richmond  in  1845,  as  "mostly 
filthy  and  loathsome  places."9 

In  the  buying  States  two  of  the  principal  slave 
markets  were  Natchez  and  New  Orleans.10  That 
of  Natchez  is  thus  described  about  1835  by  In- 
graham  : 

"A  mile  from  Natchez  we  come  to  a  cluster  of 
rough  wooden  buildings,  in  the  angle  of  two 
roads  in  front  of  which  several  saddle  horses, 
either  tied  or  held  by  servants,  indicated  a  place 
of  popular  resort.  .  .  .  We  entered  through 
a  wide  gate  into  a  narrow  court  yard.  A  line  of 
negroes  extended  in  a  semicircle  around  the  right 
side  of  the  yard.  There  were  in  all  about  forty. 
Each  was  dressed  in  the  usual  uniform  when  in 
market  consisting  of  a  fashionably  shaped  black 
fur  hat,  .  .  .  trousers  of  coarse  corduroy 
velvet,  good  vests,  strong  shoes,  and  white  cotton 
shirts."11 


9Christian  Freeman,  Sept.   10,   1845. 
10African    Repository,    Vol.    V.,    p.    381,    cited    from 
Mercantile  Advertiser  of  New  Orleans,  Jan.  21,  1830. 

Tower:  Slavery  Unmasked,  p.  304. 
"(Ingraham)  :  The  Southwest,  Vol.  II.,  p.  192. 


!ioo    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

"There  are  four  or  five  markets  in  the  vicinity 
of  Natchez.  Several  hundred  slaves  of  all  ages 
are  exposed  to  sale.  .  .  .  Two  extensive 
markets  for  slaves  opposite  each  other,  on  the 
road  to  Washington  three  miles  from  Nat 
chez."12 

A  slave  market  in  New  Orleans  was  described 
in  1844  as  a  large  and  splendidly  decorated  edi 
fice,  which  had  the  appearance  of  having  been 
fitted  up  as  a  place  of  recreation.  It  had  a  number 
of  apartments,  a  handsome  archway,  and  a  large 
green  lawn  or  outer  court  "beautifully  decorated 
with  trees."  In  this  lawn  the  sale  of  slaves  was 
held.13 

When  a  trader  in  the  selling  States  had  col 
lected  enough  for  a  shipment  or  "coffle"  they  were 
sent  to  the  markets  in  the  buying  States.14  Slaves 
were  sent  South  both  by  land  and  water.15  In  the 


12Ibid,  p.  201. 

13Christian  Freeman,  Jan.  2,  1845 ;  quoted  from  West 
ern  Citizen  by  C  F. 

14Buckingham :  Slave  States  of  Am.  II.,  p.  485. 
Liberator,    Feb.    16,    1833.     Abdy:    Journal    of    a 
Residence  in  the  United  States,  Vol.  II.,  p.  100. 

16Andrews:  SI.  and  the  Domestic  SI.  Trade,  p.  142. 


Of    the    Southern    States.        101 

winter  they  were  usually  sent  by  water,  but  in 
summer  they  were  often  sent  by  land.16 

In  the  transportation  of  slaves  the  utmost  pre 
cautions  were  necessary  to  prevent  revolt  or  es 
cape.17  When  a  "coffle"  or  "drove"  was  formed 
to  undertake  its  march  of  seven  or  eight  weeks 
to  the  South18  the  men  would  be  chained, — "two 
by  two,  and  a  chain  passing  through  the  double 
file  and  fastening  from  the  right  and  left  hands 
of  those  on  either  side  of  the  chain."19 

This  seems  to  have  been  the  usual  method  of 
securing  them.  The  purpose  was  to  have  the 
men  so  completely  bound  as  to  render  escape  or 
resistance  impossible.  The  girls,  children  and 
women  usually  were  not  chained  and  even  some 
times  rode  in  the  wagons  which  accompanied  the 

"ibid. :  p.  78. 

Buckingham:  Slave  States,  Vol.  II.,  p.  485. 

Liberator,  Feb.   16,  1833. 

Featherstonhaugh :    Excursion    Through    the    Slave 
States,  Vol.  I.,  p.  120. 
17Niles'  Reg.,  Sept.  5,  1829. 

Featherstonhaugh:  Excursion  Through  the  Slave 
States,  Vol.  I.,  p.  122. 

Niles'  Reg.,  Oct.  14,  1826;  Nov.  18,  1826;  May  20. 
1826. 

18(Ingraham)  :  The  Southwest,  Vol.  II.,  p.  238. 
"Adams:  Southern  View  of  Slavery,  p.  77. 


1102    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

train.20  The  "droves"  were  conducted  by  white 
men,  usually,  on  horseback  and  well  armed  with 
pistols21  and  whips.22 

The  negroes  were  usually  well  fed  on  their 
way  South  and  when  they  arrived  at  their  desti 
nation,  though  their  personal  appearance  was  not 
improved,  they  were  generally  stouter  and  in  bet 
ter  condition  than  when  they  began  their  march. 
Painf  was  now  taken  to  have  them  polish  their 
skins  and  dress  themselves  in  the  uniform  suits' 
provided  for  the  purpose.23  Then  they  were  ready 
for  market.  At  the  sale  the  auctioneer  would  de 
scant  at  large  upon  the  merits  and  capabilities  of 
the  subject.24  The  slave,  too,  often  would  enter 
into  a  display  of  his  physical  appearance  with  as 

2<>The  Christian  Citizen,  Oct.  26,  1844. 

Featherstonhaugh :    Excursion    Through    the    Slave 
States,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  120-122. 

Palmer:  Journal  of  Travels  in  the  U.  S.,  p.  142. 
Birkbeck:   Notes  on  a  Journey  from  the  Coast  of 
Va.,  p.  25. 

21(Paulding)  :   Letters   From  the   South,   Vol.   I.,  p. 
128.     (Ed.  1817.) 
22Buckingham :  Slave  States  of  America,  Vol.  II.,  p. 

(Blane)  :    An   Excursion    Through    the   U.    S.    and 
Canada,  p.  226. 

23(Ingraham)  :  The  Southwest,  Vol.  II.,  p.  238. 
24Ibid. :  Vol.  II.,  p.  30. 


Of    the    Southern    States.       [103 

much  apparent  earnestness  to  command  a  high 
price  as  though  he  were  to  share  the  profits.  He 
.would  seem  to  enjoy  a  spirited  bidding.25  Each 
negro  wished  to  be  sold  first  as  it  was  thought  by 
them  to  be  an  evidence  of  superiority.26 

At  the  sales  and  auctions  the  purchaser  was  al 
lowed  the  greatest  freedom  in  the  examination 
of  the  slaves  for  sale.  And  he  would  scrutinize 
them  as  carefully  as  though  they  were  horses  or 
cattle.  The  teeth,  eyes,  feet  and  shoulders  of 
both  men  and  women  were  inspected,  sometimes 
without  any  show  of  decency.27  Scars  or  marks 
of  the  lash  decreased  their  value  in  market,  some 
times  the  sale  would  be  lost  for  that  reason.28 

In  the  slave  trade  there  is  no  doubt  that  families 
were  often  separated.29  Though  Andrews  tells  of 
a  trader  sending  a  lot  of  mothers  without  their 

*Ashworth  :  A  Tour  in  the  U.  S.,  Cuba  and  Canada,  p. 
|IJ  also  Sequel  to  Mrs.  Kemble's  Journal,  p.  8  in  (Y.) 
oi.  .ranip.,  vol.  XVII. 

(Ingraham)  :  The  Southwest,  Vol.  II.,  p.  201. 
,26(Ingraham)  :   The  Southwest,  Vol.   II.,  p.  201. 
,27Christian  Freeman :  April  10,  1845. 

Christian  Citizen,  Nov.  23,  1844. 
28Shaffner:  The  War  in  America,  p.  293. 
29Tower:  Slavery  Unmasked,  p.   127-8. 
Andrews:  SI.  and  Domestic  Slave  Trade,  p.  105. 


104    The   Domestic   Slave   Trade 

children  in  such  a  way  as  to  lead  one  to  believe 
such  a  case  was  exceptional.30  Negroes  on  large 
plantations  were  sometimes  advertised  to  be  sold 
in  families.81 

Nehemiah  Adams  says  that  in  settling  estates 
in  the  South  "good  men  exercise  as  much  care 
with  regard  to  the  disposition  of  slaves  as  though 
they  were  providing  for  white  orphan  children. 
.  .  .  Slaves  are  allowed  to  find  masters  and 
mistresses  who  will  buy  them."32 

Another  traveller  in  speaking  of  the  slave  auc 
tion  at  Natchez,  says : 

"It  is  a  rule  seldom  deviated  from,  to  sell 
families  and  relations  together,  if  practicable.  A 
negro  trader  in  my  presence  refused  to  sell  a 
negro  girl  for  whom  a  planter  offered  a  high  price 
because  he  would  not  also  purchase  her  sister/'33 

As  a  rule  negroes  had  a  great  dislike  to  be  sold 
South;  in  the  early  history  of  the  trade  this 


80Andrews :  Slavery  and  Domestic  SI.  Trade,  p.  164. 

slLiberator,  May  6,  1853. 

Sequel  to  Mrs.  Kemble's  Journal,  p.  n,  in   (Yale) 
SI.  Pamp.,  Vol.  XVII. . 

32Adams :  Southern  View  of  Slavery,  p.  72. 
"(Ingraham)  :  The  Southwest,  Vol.  II.,  p.  201. 


Of    the    Southern    States.       +0$ 

amounted  to  horror  for  them.34  Whether  this  dis 
like  arose  from  the  impression  that  they  might  not 
be  treated  so  well  or  simply  from  the  natural 
dislike  of  removing  to  a  strange  land  is  a  question, 
though  the  latter  seems  much  more  probable.35 
In  1835,  however,  it  appears  that  the  Virginia 
slaves  were  not  so  averse  to  going  South  for  the 
reason  that  many  who  had  gone  there  sent  back 
such  favorable  accounts  of  their  circumstances.36 

Another  phase  of  the  domestic  slave  trade, 
which  it  may  not  be  out  of  way  to  mention,  was 
the  traffic  in  beautiful  mulatto  or  quadroon  girls. 
It  was  a  part  of  the  slave  trader's  business  to 
search  out  and  obtain  therm.  At  New  Orleans, 
or  elsewhere,  they  were  sold  at  very  high  prices 
for  the  purpose  of  prostitution  or  as  mistresses.37 

From  a  letter  written  in  1850  by  a  slave  dealer 


i  '')  LettCrS  fr°m  the  S°Uth)   V°l  L'  p' 
Torrey:    A    Portraiture    of     Domestic     Slavery    in 
U.    S.,  p.  145. 

^Olmsted:  Cotton  Kingdom,  Vol.  I.,  p.  336. 

36  Andrews:  Slavery  and  Domestic  SI.  Trade,  p.  118. 

37Candler:  A  Summary  View  of  Am.,  p.  276. 

Liberator,  June   18,   1847. 

(Blane)  :  Excursion  Through  the  U.  S.,  p.  200. 

Tower:   Slavery  Unmasked,  p.   304-7. 


106    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

of  Alexandria,  Virginia,  we  quote  the  following: 

"We  .  .  .  cannot  afford  to  sell  the  girl 
Emily  for  less  than  $1,800.  .  .  .  We  have 
two  or  three  offers  for  Emily  from  gentlemen 
from  the  South.  She  is  said  to  be  the  finest  look 
ing  woman  in  this  country.38 

In  New  Orleans  they  often  brought  very  high 
prices.  The  "Liberator"  quoting  from  the  New 
York  "Sun"  in  1837  concerning  the  sale  of  a  girl 
at  New  Orleans,  says:  "The  beautiful  Martha 
was  struck  off  at  $4,5oo."39  And  in  the  New  Or 
leans  "Picayune,"  of  the  same  year,  was  an  ac 
count  of  a  girl — "remarkable  for  her  beauty  and 
intelligence" — who  sold  at  $7,000  in  New  Or 
leans.40  Many  other  instances  might  be  given 
but  we  think  these  sufficient. 

A  word  now  with  reference  to  slave  traders 
and  the  general  estimation  in  which  they  were 
held  in  the  South. 

Ingraham  says:  "Their  admission  into  society 
.  .  .  is  not  recognized.  Planters  associate 

38Stowe :  Key  to  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  p.  169. 
39Liberator,  July  7,  1837. 

40Quarterly  Anti-Slavery  Magazine,  Vol.  II.,  p.  409, 
July,  1837- 


Of   the   Southern   States,       [107 

with  them  freely  enough,  in  the  way  of  business, 
but  notice  them  no  further.  A  slave  trader  is 
much  like  other  men.  He  is  to-day  a  plain  farmer 
with  twenty  or  thirty  slaves  endeavoring  to  earn 
a  few  dollars  from  the  worn  out  land,  in  some 
old  homestead.  He  is  in  debt  and  hears  he  can 
sell  his  slaves  in  Mississippi  for  twice  their  value 
in  his  own,  State.  He  takes  his  slaves  and  goes  to 
Mississippi.  He  finds  it  profitable  and  his  in 
clinations  prompt  him  to  buy  of  his  neighbors 
when  he  returns  home  and  makes  another  trip  to 
Mississippi,  thus  he  gets  started."41 

Some  traders  were  no  doubt  honorable  men. 
Indeed,  Andrews  gives  us  a  very  pleasing  pic 
ture  of  Armfield,  the  noted  Alexandria,  Virginia, 
slave  dealer.  He  describes  him  as  "a  man  of  fine 
personal  appearance,  and  of  engaging  and  grace 
ful  manners.""  .  .  .  "Nothing,  however,  can  rec- 
oncile  the  moral  sense  of  the  Southern  public  to 
41(Ingraham):  The  Southwest,  Vol.  II.,  p.  245. 

nd  the  Domestic  Slave  Trade, 


rw 

looked    steadily    at   the    fellow,    and    recollecting    him 
found  no  longer  any  difficulty  in  accountTng  for  gsuc^  a 


io8    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

the  character  of  a  trader  in  slaves.  However 
honorable  may  be  his  dealings  his  employment 
is  accounted  infamous."43 

Upon  the  whole,  no  doubt  the  characterization 
of  the  slave  traders  by  Featherstonhaugh  was  a 
true  one : 

"Sordid,  illiterate  and  vulgar  ...  men  who 
have  nothing  whatever  in  corrimon  with  the  gen 
tlemen  of  the  Southern  States."44 

Finch  says:  "A  slave  dealer  is  considered  the 
lowest  and  most  degraded  occupation,  and  none 
will  engage  in  it  unless  they  have  no  other  means 
of  support/'45 

Indeed  it  seems  they  were  accounted  the  abhor 
rence  of  every  one.  Their  descendants,  when 
known,  had  a  blot  upon  them  and  the  property 
acquired  in  the  traffic  as  well.46 


compound  of  everything  vulgar  and  revolting  and  to 
tally  without  education.  I  had  now  a  key  to  his  man 
ner  and  the  expression  of  his  countenance." — Feather 
stonhaugh :  Excursion  Through  the  Slave  States,  Vol. 
I.,  p.  167. 

^'Andrews:   SI.  and  Domestic  SI.  Trade,  p.   150. 

44Featherstonhaugh :  Excursion  Through  the  Slave 
States,  Vol.  I.,  p.  128. 

45Finch:  Travels  in  the  U.  S.  and  Canada,  p.  241. 

46Adams:  Southern  View  of  Slavery,  p.  77, 


Of    the    Southern    States.        109 


CHAPTER  VII. 

LAWS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES  WITH  REFERENCE 
TO  IMPORTATION  AND  EXPORTATION  OF  SLAVES. 

VIRGINIA. 

THE  General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  1778,  en 
acted  that  "no  slaves  shall  hereafter  be  imported 
into  this  commonwealth,  by  sea  or  land,  nor  shall 
any  slave  or  slaves  so  imported  be  sold  or  bought 
by  any  person  whatever,"  under  penalty  of  one 
thousand  pounds  for  every  slave  imported  and  five 
hundred  pounds  for  every  one  either  sold  or 
bought,  and  the  slave  himself  to  be  free.  It  was 
provided,  however,  that  persons  removing  to  the 
State  from  other  States  with  the  intention  of  be 
coming  citizens  of  Virginia  might  bring  their 
slaves  with  them,  upon  taking  the  following  oath 
within  ten  days  after  their  removal : 

"I.  A.  B.  do  swear  that  my  removal  to  the  State 
of  Virginia  was  with  no  intention  to  evade  the 
act  for  preventing  the  further  importation  of 


i  io    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

slaves  within  this  commonwealth,  nor  have  I 
brought  with  me,  nor  have  any  of  the  slaves  now 
in  my  possession  been  imported  from  Africa,  or 
any  of  the  West  India  Islands  since  the  first  day 
of  November  1778,  so  help  me  God."1 

This  act  did  not  apply  to  persons  claiming 
slaves  by  descent,  marriage  or  divorce,  or  to  any 
citizen  of  Virginia  who  was  then  the  actual 
owner  of  slaves  within  any  of  the  United  States, 
nor  to  transient  travellers  having  slaves  as  neces 
sary  attendants.2 

In  1785  a  law  was  passed  declaring  free  the 
slaves  who  should  afterward  be  imported  and 
kept  in  the  State  a  year,  whether  at  one  time  or 
at  several  times,  (a)  The  same  exceptions  were 
made  as  in  the  law  of  1778. 

In  1796  these  acts  were  amended  making  it  law 
ful  for  any  citizen  of  the  United  States  residing 
in  Virginia  or  owning  lands  there  to  carry  out 
any  slaves  born  in  the  State  and  bring  them 
back,  provided  they  had  neither  been  hired  nor 


iHening:    Statutes  at  Large,  Vol.   IX.,  p.   471. 

'Hening:  Vol.  IX.,  p.  471.     (a)   Ibid.,  Vol.  XII.,  p, 
182. 


Of    the    Southern    States.        nil 

sold.  If,  however,  they  were  entitled  to  freedom 
in  the  State  to  which  they  were  removed,  they 
could  not  again  be  held  as  slaves  in  Virginia.3 

In  1806  a  law  was  passed  totally  prohibiting 
the  introduction  of  slaves  into  Virginia.4  It  was 
amended,  however,  in  1811,  in  favor  of  residents 
of  the  State,  as  it  restored  to  them  the  same  privi 
leges  concerning  the  importation  of  slaves  which 
they  had  under  the  law  of  I778.5  An  act  of 
January  9,  1813,  further  amended  and  extended  to 
immigrants  the  right  of  bringing  in  slaves.  They 
were  allowed  to  introduce  only  such  slaves  as  they 
had  owned  for  two  years  or  acquired  by  marriage 
or  inheritance.  Any  one  introducing  slaves  was 
put  under  obligation  not  to  sell  them  within  two 
years.  Those  thus  importing  slaves  were  required 
also  to  exhibit  before  a  justice  of  the  peace  a 
written  statement  with  the  name,  age,  sex  and  de 
scription  of  each  slave,  and  to  take  oath  that  the 
account  was  true  and  that  they  were  not  intro 
duced  for  the  purpose  of  sale  or  with  the  inten- 

3Shepherd :  Statutes  at  Large,  of  Va.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  19. 
4Shepherd:  Statutes  at  Large,  Vol.  III.,  p.  251. 
6Acts  of  1810-1811,  p.  15,  C.  14. 


ii2    The    Domestic    Slave   Tra'de 

tion  for  evading  the  laws.6  The  last  act  of  Virginia 
regarding  the  importation  of  slaves  was  that  of 
1819.  This  law  permitted  the  importation  of 
slaves  not  convicted  of  crime,  from  any  of  the 
United  States.7 

SOUTH  CAROLINA. 

In  1792  South  Carolina  passed  a  law  to  prohibit 
for  two  years  the  importation  of  slaves  from 
Africa,  or  from  "other  places  beyond  the  seas;" 
it  also  prohibited  the  introduction  of  slaves  who 
were  bound  for  a  term  of  years  in  any  of  the 
United  States.  An  exception,  however,  was  made 
of  citizens  who  might  acquire  slaves  by  marriage, 
or  actual  settlers  in  the  State  and  of  travellers.8 
This  act  was  revised  in  1794  and  extended  to 
1797.  As  revised  it  totally  prohibited  the  intro 
duction  of  slaves  into  South  Carolina  from  all 
places  from  without  the  United  States.9  In  1796 


6Acts  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Va.,  1812-13,  p. 
26,  C.  28. 

7Ibid..   1818-19,  p.  37,  C.  26. 

8Faust:  Acts  of  General  Assembly  of  S.  C.  From 
1791  to  1794,  Vol.  L,  p.  215.  McCord,  Statutes  at 
Large  of  S.  C,  Vol.  VII.,  p.  431. 

12Ibid.,  p.  444. 


Of   the   Southern    States. 

it  was  extended  to  1799  ;10  again  extended  in  1798 
to  1801  (a) ;  and  in  1800  it  was  again  extended 
to  1803.  In  1800,  also,  an  act  was  passed  totally 
prohibiting  the  introduction  of  slaves  into  the 
State  except  by  immigrants,11  and  in  1801  it  was 
made  even  more  stringent :  Any  slaves  brought  in 
were  to  be  sold  by  the  sheriff  of  the  district  in 
which  they  were  found  upon  the  order  of  the 
court.12  It  was  found  that  the  acts  of  1800  and 

1801  were  too  rigorous  and  inconvenient.     In 

1802  that  part  of  the  laws  which  prevented  citi 
zens  of  other  States   from  carrying  their  own 
slaves  through  South  Carolina  was  repealed.    It 
was  provided  that  any  one  who  wished  to  pass 
through  the  State  with  slaves  might  do  so;  but 
near  the  place  where  he  was  to  enter  the  State 
he  should  take  the  following  oath  before  a  magis 
trate  or  quorum  : 

"I,  A.  B.,  do  swear  that  the  slaves  which  I  am 
carrying  through  this  State  are  bona  fide  my  prop 
erty,  and  that  I  will  not  sell,  hire  or  dispose  of 

9McCord :  Vol.  VII.,  p.  433. 
10Ibid. :  p.  434     (a)  p.  435. 
nlbid.:  pp.  436-439. 


[114    TKe    Domestic    Slave   Track 

said  slaves,  or  either  of  them,  to  any  resident  or 
citizen,  or  body  corporate  or  public,  or  any  other 
person  or  persons  whomsoever,  within  the  State 
of  South  Carolina,  but  will  travel  directly  to  the 
place  where  I  intend  to  move.13 

In  1803  an  act  repealing  and  amending  former 
acts  on  the  importation  of  slaves  was  enacted. 
The  introduction  of  negroes  from  the  West  Indies 
or  South  America  was  prohibited ;  and  from  any 
of  the  other  States  unless  with  a  certificate  of 
good  character.  There  was  no  restriction  with  re 
spect  to  Africa.14 

No  more  laws  regarding  importation  were 
passed  until  1816.  Then  it  was  enacted  that  no 
slave  should  be  brought  into  the  State  "from  any 
of  the  United  States  or  territories  or  countries 
bordering  thereon."  The  only  exception  was  in 
favor  of  travellers  with  not  more  than  two  slaves, 
or  settlers  on  their  way  to  other  States,  who,  be 
fore  entering  South  Carolina,  were  required  to 
take  an  oath  with  regard  to  their  slaves  similar 


i3McCord:  Stat.  at  Large  of  S.  C,  Vol.  VII,  p.  447- 
14Ibid.,  p.  449. 


Of    the    Southern    States.       [115 

to  that  required  by  the  law  of  i8o2.15    This  law 
was  amended  in  1817  in  part  as  follows: 

"That  every  inhabitant  of  this  State  who  was 
bona  fide  entitled  in  his  or  her  own  right  or  in  the 
right  of  his  wife,  to  any  slave  or  slaves  on  the 
I9th  day  of  December,  1816,  or  hereafter  shall 
become  entitled  to  any  such  slave,  by  inheritance 
or  marriage,  shall  be  permitted  to  bring  them  in" 
on  certain  conditions.16  Both  the  law  of  1816  and 
that  of  1817  were  repealed  in  i8i8.17 

In  1823  South  Carolina  made  it  lawful  to 
bring  into  the  State  any  slave  from  the  "West 
Indies,  South  America,  or  from  Europe,  or  from 
any  sister  State  which  may  be  situated  to  the 
North  of  the  Potomac  River  or  the  City  of  Wash 
ington."  No  slave  was  allowed  to  return  to 
South  Carolina  who  had  been  carried  out  of  the 
State  and  had  visited  any  of  these  places.  The 
penalty  was  severe,  it  being  $1,000  and  forfeiture 
of  the  slave.^  This  law  was  re-enacted  in  1835,™ 

S.'c^iS^  R2°Iutions  of  the  General  Assembly  of 
16Acts  of  S.'  C,'  1817,  p.  17. 

E  ?8fj7h6lCarolina'  I8l8>  *•  57- 

id,  1835,  PP:  37-' 


ii6    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

and  in  1847  it  was  amended  to  allow  slaves  to 
return  who  should  go  to  Cuba,  on  board  of  any 
steamboat  in  the  capacity  of  steward,  cook,  fire 
man,  engineer,  pilot,  or  mariner,  provided  he 
had  visited  none  of  the  other  restricted  places.20 
It  was  amended  again  in  1848  and  Baltimore 
and  all  ports  on  the  Chesapeake  Bay  in  the  State 
of  Maryland  were  placed  on  the  same  footing 
with  regard  to  the  importation  of  slaves  as  the 
States  south  of  the  Potomac.21 

NORTH   CAROLINA. 

In  1786  North  Carolina  passed  her  first  law 
to  restrict  the  importation  of  slaves  from  other 
States.  It  was  as  follows: 

"Every  person  who  shall  introduce  into  this 
State  any  slave  from  any  of  the  United  States, 
which  have  passed  laws  for  the  liberation  of 
slaves,  shall,  on  complaint  thereof  before  any 
justice  of  the  peace  be  compelled  by  such  justice 
to  enter  into  bond  with  sufficient  surety,  in  the  sum 
of  $100  current  money  for  each  slave,  for  the  re 
moving  of  such  slave  to  the  State  from  whence 

24Ibid.,   1848,  Dec.  19,  1848. 
2iLaws  of  S.  C,  1848,  Dec.  19,  1848. 


Of  the   Southern   States.       117 

such  slave  was  brought,  within  three  months 
thereafter,  the  penalty  to  be  recovered,  one-half 
for  the  use  of  the  State,  the  other  half  for  the 
use  of  the  prosecutor,  or  failure  of  a  compliance 
therewith ;  and  the  person  introducing  such  slave 
shall  also,  in  case  of  such  failure,  forfeit  and  pay 
the  sum  of  $200,  to  be  recovered  by  any  person 
suing  for  the  same  and  applied  to  their  use."22 
A  law  of  1794  prohibited  the  introduction  of 
slaves  and  indentured  servants  of  color.  Ex 
ceptions  were  made  of  slave  owners  coming  to 
the  States  to  reside  and  of  citizens  of  North 
Carolina  inheriting  slaves  in  other  States.23  In 
1795  emigrants  from  the  West  Indies,  Bahama 
Islands,  French,  Dutch  and  Spanish  settlements 
on  the  southern  coast  of  America,  were  prevented 
from  bringing  in  slaves  who  were  more  than  fif- 

22Revised  Statutes,  by  Authority  of  the  General  As 
sembly,  1836-7,  Vol.  II.,  p.  575.  Chap.  III.,  Sec.  19. 
We  could  not  find  that  it  was  ever  repealed.  It  is  to 
be  found  in  the  Revised  Code  of  North  Carolina,  1854. 
As  this  was  taken  from  the  Revised  Statutes  of  1836-7, 
it  is  natural  to  find  the  penalty  expressed  in  dollars, 
rather  than  in  pounds. 

23Hayward :  A  Manual  of  the  Laws  of  N.  C,  to  1817 
inclusive,  p.  533.  Must  have  been  repealed  between 
1817  and  1819,  as  it  is  not  in  the  Revised  Statutes  of 
1819. 


tii8     The   Domestic    Slave   Trade 

teen  years  of  age.  An  act  of  1776,  however,  al 
lowed  slaves  to  be  brought  in  who  belonged 
to  residents  near  the  Virginia  and  South  Carolina 
boundaries.24  A  law  was  passed  in  1816  which 
provided  that  slaves  brought  into  North  Carolina 
from  foreign  countries  contrary  to  the  act  of 
Congress  of  1807,  to  be  sold.  No  more  laws 
concerning  importation  were  passed  after  the  re 
peal  of  the  laws  against  importation  about  i8i8.23 

GEORGIA. 

Georgia  passed  a  law  against  the  importation 
of  slaves  in  I793-25  This  seemed  to  apply  only 
to  slaves  imported  fromi  without  the  United 
States.  In  1798  a  new  constitution  was  framed 
which  provided  "that  there  shall  be  no  im 
portation  of  slaves  into  this  State  from  Africa 
or  any  foreign  place  after  the  first  of  October 
next."26 

In  1817  the  following  was  enacted : 

"It  shall  not  be  lawful,  except  in  cases  herein 


24Hurd:    Law  of  Freedom  and  Bondage,  Vol.  II.,  p. 
84. 

25Hurd:   Freedom  and  Bondage,  Vol.   II.,  p.   101. 
26Poore :  Fed.  and  State  Constitutions,  Part  I.,  p.  395- 


Of   the   Southern   States.       119 

authorized  and  allowed  for  any  person  or  persons 
whatever  to  bring,  import  or  introduce  into  this 
State,  to  aid,  or  assist,  or  knowingly  to  become 
concerned  or  interested  in  bringing,  importing 
or  introducing  into  this  State,  either  by  land  or 
by  water,  or  in  any  manner  whatsoever,  any 
slave  or  slaves."  Citizens  of  Georgia  and  those 
of  other  States  coming  to  Georgia  to  live  were 
permitted  to  bring  in  slaves  for  their  own  use. 
Before  importing  them  they  were  required  to 
make  oath  before  the  proper  authorities  that  they 
were  not  imported  for  sale,  or  hire,  lend,  or  mort 
gage.  The  act  was  not  to  extend  to  travellers.27 
This  act  was  repealed  in  1824  and  slaves  then 
were  imported  and  disposed  of  without  restric 
tion.28  The  law  of  1817  was  revised  in  1829; 
modified  in  1836;  again  repealed  in  1841;  re 
vived  again  in  i842.29 

I*1  J^35  a  law  was  enacted  making  any  one 
subject  to  fine  and  imprisonment  who  should 
bring  into  Georgia  any  male  slave  who  had  been 

27Acts  of  General  Assembly  of  Ga.,  1817,  p    139 

28Ibid.,  1824,  p.  124. 

29Hurd:  Law  of  Freedom  and  Bondage,  Vol.  II     p. 


I2O    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

to  a  non-slave-holding  State  or  to  any  foreign 
country.30 

In  1849  "a^  *aws  and  parts  of  laws,  civil  and 
criminal,  forbidding  or  in  any  manner  restricting 
the  importation  of  slaves  into  this  State  from  any 
other  slave-holding  State"  were  repealed.  Cities 
and  towns  were  given  the  right  to  regulate  the 
sale  of  slaves  by  traders,  and  to  prescribe  the 
places  in  their  jurisdiction  where  slaves  might 
be  kept  and  sold.31  In  1852  so  much  of  this  law 
as  had  reference  to  importation  of  slaves  was 
repealed  and  the  act  of  1817  was  revived.32  But 
the  penitentiary  imprisonment  clause  was  elimi 
nated.  The  law  of  1852  was  repealed  by  the 
Legislature  of  1855-6  and  the  act  of  1849  was 
revived  thus  again  opening  the  State  to  the  unre 
stricted  importation  of  slaves.33 

MARYLAND. 

In  1783  Maryland  prohibited  the  importation 
of  slaves.  It  was  amended  in  1791  and  also  in 

soActs  of  the  State  of  Ga.,  1835,  p.  267. 
3!Laws  of  Ga.,  1849-50,  p.  374- 
32 Acts  of  Ga.,  1851-2,  p.  263. 
of  Ga.,  1855-6,  p.  271, 


Of    the    Southern    States.        121 

I794-34  In  1796  the  General  Assembly  of  Mary 
land  enacted :  "That  it  shall  not  be  lawful,  from 
and  after  the  passing  of  this  act  to  import  or 
bring  into  this  State,  by  land  or  water,  any  negro, 
mulatto,  or  other  slave,  for  sale,  or  to  reside 
within  this  State;  and  any  person  brought  into 
this  State  as  a  slave  contrary  to  this  act,  if  a  slave 
before,  shall  thereupon  immediately  cease  to  be 
the  property  of  the  person  or  persons  so  import 
ing  or  bringing  such  slave  within  the  State,  and 
shall  be  free." 

Immigrants  to  the  State  were  allowed  to  bring 
in  their  own  slaves,  at  the  time  of  removal  or 
within  one  year  afterward.  It  was  required  that 
these  slaves  should  have  been  within  the  United 
States  three  years.35  In  1797  this  law  was  modi 
fied  in  favor  of  those  coming  into  Maryland  to  re 
side.  In  1810  a  law  was  passed  to  prevent  those 
who  were  slaves  for  a  limited  time  from  being 
sold  out  of  the  State.36 

!i!Hurd  :  Law  °*  Freedom  and  Bondage,  Vol.  II.,  p.  19. 

35Maxcy:  The  Laws  of  Md,  Vol.  II.,  p.  351.  €0.67. 
Kurd:  Vol.  II.,  p.  21. 

36Ibid.:  1897,  Chap.  15.  Other  exceptions  by  Public 
and  Private  Acts,  1798,  C  76;  1812,  C.  76;  1813,  C. 
55;  1818-19,  C.  201;  Kurd:  Vol.  II.,  p.  19. 


122    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

In  1817  a  law  was  passed  regulating  the  ex 
portation  of  slaves  as  follows : 

"That  whenever  any  person  shall  purchase 
any  slave  or  slaves  within  this  State,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  exporting  or  removing  the  same  beyond 
the  limits  of  this  State,  it  shall  be  their  duty 
to  take  from  the  seller  a  bill  of  sale  for  said  slave 
or  slaves,  in  which  the  age  and  distinguishing 
marks  as  nearly  as  may  be,  and  the  name  of 
such  slave  or  slaves  shall  be  inserted  and  the  same 
shall  be  acknowledged  before  some  justice  of  the 
peace  of  the  county  where  the  sale  shall  be  made 
and  lodged  to  be  recorded  in  the  office  of  the  clerk 
of  the  said  county,  within  twenty  days,  and  the 
clerk  shall  immediately  on  the  receipt  thereof, 
actually  record  the  same  and  deliver  a  copy 
thereof  on  demand  to  the  purchaser,  with  a  cer 
tificate  endorsed  thereupon  under  the  seal  of  the 
county  of  the  same  being  duly  recorded."37 

The  following  year  (1818)  a  law  was  passed 
which  provided  that  any  slave  convicted  of  a 
crime,  which,  in  the  judgment  of  the  court  should 


37Dorsey:   General  Laws  of  Md.,   1692  to   1839,  Vol. 
L,  p.  661. 


Of   the    Southern   States*       123 

not  be  punished  by  hanging,  might  be  trans 
ported  for  sale.38  In  1846  the  legislature  enacted 
that  slaves,  sentenced  to  the  penitentiary  should 
be  publicly  sold  at  the  expiration  of  their  service 
and  transported.39 

In  1831  a  very  restrictive  law  was  enacted. 
It  prohibited  the  introduction  of  slaves  into  the 
State  either  for  sale  or  residence.40  The  restric 
tive  policy  did  not  continue  long,  for  in  1833  tne 
barrier  to  the  introduction  of  slaves  for  resi 
dence  was  withdrawn.  Persons  removing  to  the 
State  with  the  intention  of  becoming  citizens 
were  required  to  pay  a  tax  on  every  slave  in 
troduced  for  the  benefit  of  the  State  Colonization 
Society.41  This  act  was  supplemented  by  another 
in  1839.  Immigrants  were  required  to  make  affi 
davit  that  it  was  their  intention  to  become  citi 
zens  of  the  State,  and  to  pay  a  tax  on  their  slaves 
imported  from  five  to  fifteen  dollars,  according 

38Laws  of  Md.,  1818,  C.  197,  Sec.  2. 

Dorsey:  Vol.  L,  p.  702. 
39Laws  of  Md.,  1846,  Chap.  340,  Sec.  2. 
40Dorsey:  Gen.    Public  and  Private  Stat.  Law,  VoL 
II.,  p.  1069;  C  323,  Sec.  4. 
41Dorsey:  Ibid.,  Vol.  L,  p.  335,  note. 

Laws  of  Gen.  Assembly  of  Md.,  1833-4,  Chap.  87. 


124    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

to  age.42  In  1847  a  provision  was  made  to  allow 
guardians,  executors  and  trustees  residing  in  the 
State  to  bring  in  slaves  appointed  by  a  last  will.43 
In  1850  all  laws  against  the  importation  of  life 
slaves  was  repealed  except  such  as  extended  to 
those  who  were  slaves  for  a  term  of  years  or 
those  convicted  of  crime  in  another  State.44  Mary 
land  continued  open  to  the  introduction  of 
slaves.45 

DELAWARE. 

Delaware  has  the  distinction  of  being  the  only 
one  of  the  original  Southern  States  to  embody  a 
declaration  unfavorable  to  the  importation  of 
slaves  in  her  first  constitution.  In  that  of  1776 
she  says: 

"No  person  hereafter  imported  into  this  State 
from  Africa  ought  to  be  held  in  slavery  under 
any  pretense  whatever;  and  no  negro,  Indian, 

42Dorsey:  Laws  of  Md.,  1692  to  1839,  inclusive,  Vol. 
III.,  p.  2325.  Laws  of  1839,  Ch.  155. 

43Laws  of  Md.   1847,  Chap.  232,  Sec.  I. 

44Laws  of  Md.,  1849-50,  Chap.  165,  Sec.  I.,  II..  TV. 

«Mackall,  Md.  Code,  adopted  by  Leg.  1860,  Vol.  I., 
p.  450- 


Of    the    Southern    States.        .125 

or  mulatto  ought  to  be  brought  into  this  State 
for  sale  from  any  part  of  the  world."46 

In  1787  a  law  was  passed  regulating  the  ex 
portation  of  slaves.  A  permit  was  required  to 
export  negroes.47  A  law  permitting  the  introduc 
tion  of  slaves  who  were  devised  or  inherited  was 
enacted.  The  law  against  exportation  was  made 
more  severe.48 

In  1793  another  law  was  enacted  to  further 
regulate  the  exportation  of  slaves.  It  only  made  a 
slight  change.  Any  negro  exported  contrary  to 
the  act  was  to  have  his  freedom.40  In  1828  courts 
were  given  the  right  to  sentence  slaves  for  cer 
tain  offenses  to  be  exported.  Those  thus  ex 
ported  were  not  allowed  to  return  to  the  State.50 
There  were  re-enactments  in  1827  and  in  1829 
concerning  the  exportation  of  slaves.51  In  1833 
a  law  was  passed  to  enable  farmers  to  carry  slaves 

46Poore :  Fed.  and  State  Constitutions,  Part  I.,  p.  277. 

47Hurd:    Vol.    II.,  p.   74. 

4»Ibid.,  p.  75. 

49Laws  of  State  of  Del.,  1793,  p.  105-6.  This  act  of 
Del.  was  sustained  by  the  Court  of  Baltimore  in  a  case 
brought  before  it  in  1840.  Liberator,  July  24,  1840. 

50Laws  of  Delaware,  Dover,  1829,  Vol.  VII.,  p.  122, 
Feb.  7,  1829. 

«Hurd:    Vol.  II.,  pp.  79-80. 


126    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

into  Maryland  to  cultivate  land  without  incurring 
any  penalty.52  There  seems  to  have  been  no  more 
enactments  of  Delaware  concerning  importation 
or  exportation  of  slaves. 

LOUISIANA. 

The  act  of  Congress  in  1804  erecting  Louisiana 
into  a  territory  prohibited  the  introduction  of 
slaves  into  it  from  without  the  United  States. 
Only  slaves  imported  before  May  i,  1798,  could 
be  introduced,  and  those  had  to  be  slaves  of  actual 
settlers.53  An  act  of  Louisiana  in  1810  was  to 
prevent  the  introducing  of  slaves  who  had  been 
guilty  of  crime.5* 

It  was  not  until  1826  that  Louisiana  as  a 
State  passed  any  law  against  the  introduction  of 
slaves  as  merchandise.  But  this  year  it  was  en 
acted  "That  no  person  or  persons  shall  after  the 
first  day  of  June  1826,  bring  into  this  State  any 
slave  or  slaves  with  the  intention  to  sell  or  hire 
the  same."  Citizens  of  Louisiana  and  immigrants 

52Laws  of  Del.,  Vol.  VIIL,  p.  246.  Dover,  1837, 
passed  Feb.  5,  1833. 

53Poore :  Fed.  and  State  Constitutions,  Part  I.,  p.  693. 
:  Freedom  and  Bondage,  Vol.  II.,  p.  159- 


Of    the    Southern    States.       [127 

(could  bring  in  their  own  slaves,  but  were  not  al 
lowed  to  hire,  exchange  or  sell  them  within  two 
years  after  such  importation.55  This  act  was  re 
pealed  in  i828,56  but  in  1829  another  law  was 
passed  which  required  that  any  one  who  should 
introduce  slaves  above  twelve  years  of  age  to 
have  a  certificate  for  each  slave,  signed  by  two 
respectable  and  well  known  free-holders  of  the 
county  from  which  the  slaves  were  brought,  ac 
companied  with  their  declaration  on  oath  that 
the  slaves  had  never  been  guilty  of  crime,  and 
that  they  were  of  good  character.  Children  under 
ten  years  of  age  could  not  be  brought  in  separate 
from  their  mother.57  This  was  repealed  March  24, 
1831. 58  Almost  immediately  after  the  South 
ampton  Massacre  in  Virginia,  Louisiana  called 
an  extra  session  of  her  legislature.  The  only  im 
portant  act  of  the  session  was  an  act  prohibiting 
importation  of  slaves  for  sale  or  hire.  Immi 
grants  and  citizens  were  prohibited  from  bring- 

55Acts  of   Second   Sess.  of   Seventh  Legislature,  pp. 
114-116. 

56Acts  2nd  Sess.  8th  Leg.   (1828),  p.  22. 
5?Laws  of  La.,  1829,  ist  Sess.  gih  Leg.,  p.  38. 
58Laws  of  La.,  1831,  p.  76. 


128    The    Domestic    Slave    Trade 

ing  in  slaves  from  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Florida 
and  Arkansas.  Those  permitted  to  be  brought 
in  could  not  be  sold  or  hired  within  five  years. 
A  certificate  as  in  the  law  of  1829  was  also  re 
quired.59  It  was  amended  during  the  same  ses 
sion  and  the  States  of  Tennessee,  Kentucky  and 
Missouri  were  included  in  the  prohibition.60  It 
was  repealed  in  i83461  and  no  other  law  with 
respect  to  the  importation  of  slaves  was  ever  en 
acted  by  Louisiana. 

MISSISSIPPI. 

The  Act  of  Congress  in  1798,  establishing  a 
government  in  the  Mississippi  Territory  pro 
hibited  the  importation  of  slaves  from  without 
the  United  States,62  and  the  constitution  of  1817 
excluded  slaves  guilty  of  "high  crimes  in  other 
States/'63 

The  territorial  act  of  1808  made  it  unlawful 


59 Acts  of  Extra  Sess.  of  loth  Leg.  of  La.,  p.  4. 
«°Hurd:  Vol.  II.,  p.   162. 
«iLaws  of  La.,  1834,  p.  6. 

espoore:   Fed.   and   State  Constitutions,   Part  II.,  p. 
1050. 
63Ibid.,  p.  1064. 


Of    the    Southern    States.        129 

"to  expose  for  sale  any  slave  above  fifteen  years 
of  age  without  having  previously  exhibited  to  the 
chief  justice  of  the  Orphans'  Court  of  the  county 
where  offered  for  sale,  a  certificate  signed  by 
two  respectable  freeholders  living  in  the  county 
from  whence  the  slave  was  brought,  describing 
the  stature,  complexion,  sex,  name,  and  not  to 
have  been  guilty  of  any  murder,  crime,  arson, 
burglary,  felony,  larceny  to  their  knowledge  or 
belief  where  he  came  from,  which  certificate 
shall  be  signed  and  acknowledged  before  the 
clerk  of  the  county  from  whence  he  came,  and 
certification  by  said  clerk  that  those  whose  names 
are  prefixed  are  respectable  freeholders. 
Such  certificates  aforesaid  shall  be  registered 
with  the  register  of  the  orphans'  court  where 
such  slaves  are  sold,  the  seller  taking  oath  that 
he  believes  said  certificate  is  just  and  true."64 

In  1819  another  act  was  passed  to  amend  the 
law  of  1808.  Slaves  brought  into  the  State  as 
merchandise  were  made  subject  to  a  tax  of  twenty 
dollars  each.  A  certificate  was  required  as  in  the 

64Turner :  Statutes  of  the  Miss.  Territory,  Digested 
by  Authority  of  the  General  Assembly,  (1816)  p.  386-7. 


130    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

law  of  1808,  but  it  was  not  to  apply  to  those 
brought  in  for  their  own  use  by  citizens  and  immi 
grants  except  those  from  Louisiana  and  the  Ala 
bama  territory.65  An  act  of  1822  reduced  into  one 
the  several  acts  concerning  slaves,  free  negroes 
and  mulattoes,  but  no  important  changes  were 
made  with  regard  to  the  importation  of  slaves.66 

The  new  constitution  of  1832,  like  that  of  1817, 
excluded  slaves  guilty  of  "high  crime  in  other 
States."  It  declared,  also,  that  "The  introduction 
of  slaves  into  this  State  as  merchandise,  or  for 
sale,  shall  be  prohibited  from  and  after  the  first 
day  of  May  eighteen  hundred  and  thirty-three."67 

This  provision  of  the  constitution  gave  rise  to 
a  great  deal  of  litigation  ;68  nor  was  it  effective  in 
prohibiting  importation  of  slaves.  The  latter  ap 
pears  from  the  fact  that  in  1837  by  an  act  of  the 
legislature  "the  business  of  introducing  or  im 
porting  slaves  into  this  State  as  merchandise,  or 
for  sale  be,  and  the  same  is  hereby  prohibited." 


of  ist  Sess.  of  2nd  Gen.  Assem.  of  Miss.,  p.  5. 
«6Laws  Miss.,  Adj'd.  Sess.  June,  1822,  p.  179. 
67Poore:   Fed.   and   State   Constitutions,    Part  II.,  p. 
1077. 

Bow's  Review,  Vol.  VIII.,  p.  23. 


Of    the    Southern    States.       1131 

The  penalty  was  $500  and  six  months'  imprison 
ment  for  each  slave  so  brought  in,  and  notes 
which  might  be  given  for  slaves  were  not  collect 
able.69  This  law  was  repealed  in  1846.™ 

ALABAMA. 

The  first  law  passed  by  Alabama  concerning 
the  importation  of  slaves  was  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  into  effect  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  prohibiting  the  slave  trade.  This  was  en 
acted  in  1823  and  provided  that  slaves  imported 
should  be  employed  on  public  works  or  sold  for 
the  State.71 

But  on  January  13,  1827,  it  was  enacted  that 
"if  any  person  or  persons,  shall  bring  into  this 
State  any  slave  or  slaves,  for  the  purpose  of  sale 
or  hire,  or  shall  sell  or  hire,  any  slave  or  slaves 
brought  into  this  State  after  the  first  day  of 
August  next,  such  person  or  persons  shall  for 
feit  and  pay  the  sum  of  $1,000  for  each  negro 
so  brought  in,  one-half  thereof  to  the  person  suing 

m  69Laws  of  Miss,  from  1824  to  1838,  Pub.  by  Author 
ity  of  Legislature,  p.  758. 

7°Hurd:  Vol.  II,  p.  148. 

71Ibid.,  p.  150. 


132    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

for  the  same  and  the  other  half  to  the  use  of  the 
State.  And,  moreover,  any  person  thus  offend 
ing  shall  be  subject  to  indictment,  and  on  convic 
tion  shall  be  liable  to  be  fined  a  sum  not  exceed 
ing  five  hundred  dollars  for  each  offense  and  shall 
be  imprisoned  not  exceeding  three  months,  at  the 
discretion  of  the  jury  trying  such  offense." 

Citizens  of  the  State,  however,  were  allowed 
to  purchase  negroes  for  their  own  use  but  could 
not  sell  them  until  two  years  after  being  brought 
into  the  State.72  This  law  was  repealed  in  iS2g.73 

Another  prohibitive  law  was  passed  January 
16,  1832.  But  immigrants  were  allowed  to  bring 
their  own  slaves  with  them  and  citizens  of  the 
State  could  import  slaves  for  their  own  use, 
when  these  introduced  slaves  returns  were  to  be 
made  upon  oath  to  the  county  courts  within  thirty 
days,  describing  them,  and  declaring  that  they 
were  not  introduced  for  the  purpose  of  sale  or 
hire.  Citizens  of  Alabama  could  import  slaves 
which  might  have  become  theirs  by  inheritance  or 
marriage.  The  provisions  of  the  law  did  not  ap- 

72Acts  of  Assembly  of  Ala.,  1827,  p.  44. 
73Ibid.,  1829..  p.  63. 


Of    the    Southern    States.        133 

ply  to  travellers,  nor  to  citizens  temporarily  re 
moved  from  the  State.74  This  was  repealed  De 
cember  4,  i832,75  and  no  other  prohibitive  law  was 
enacted. 

KENTUCKY. 

The  laws  passed  by  Virginia  concerning  im 
portation  of  slaves  prior  to  1790  were  in  force  in 
Kentucky  until  1798.™  This  year  an  act  reduc 
ing  into  one  several  acts,  concerning  slaves,  free 
negroes,  mulattoes  and  Indians  was  passed.  No 
slaves  could  be  imported  into  Kentucky  who  were 
introduced  into  the  United  States  from  foreign 
countries,  except  by  immigrants  who  did  not 
violate  this  provision.  Citizens  could  do  the  same. 
But  no  slaves  might  be  imported  as  merchan 
dise..77  An  act  amending  this  was  approved  Feb 
ruary  8,  1815.  No  one  was  allowed  to  bring 
slaves  into  Kentucky  except  those  intending  to 
settle  in  the  State,  and  they  were  required  to  take 
the  following  oath  : 


of  Assembly  of  Ala.,  1831-2,  pp.  12-13-14. 

ur^Vol'lt  pp.  14-15. 
.  "Toulmin:  A  Collection  of  all  the  Acts  of  Ky.  now 
in  Force   (1802),  pp.  307-308. 
Kurd:  Vol.  II.,  pp.  14-15. 


134    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

"I,  A.  B.,  do  swear  (or  affirm)  that  my  removal 
to  the  State  of  Kentucky,  was  with  an  intention 
to  become  a  citizen  thereof,  and  that  I  have 
brought  with  me  no  slave  or  slaves,  and  will  bring 
no  slave  or  slaves  to  this  State  with  the  intention 
of  selling  them."78 

In  1833  it  was  enacted  "That  each  and  every 
person  who  shall  hereafter  import  into  this  State 
any  slave  or  slaves,  or  who  shall  sell  or  buy,  or 
contract  for  the  sale,  or  purchase,  for  a  longer 
term  than  one  year,  of  the  service  of  any  such 
slave  or  slaves,  knowing  the  same  to  have  been 
imported  as  aforesaid,  he,  she,  or  they,  so  offend 
ing,  shall  forfeit  $600  for  each  slave  so  imported, 
sold  or  bought  or  whose  service  has  been  so  con 
tracted  for."79 

It  was  not  to  apply  to  immigrants  provided  they 
took  the  required  oath;  nor  to  citizens  of  Ken 
tucky  who  derived  their  "title  by  will,  descent, 
distribution,  marriage,  gift,  or  in  consideration 
of  marriage;"  nor  to  travellers  who  could  prove 


78Acts.  Leg.  1814-15,  pp.  435-6. 
™jbid.,  1832-33,  p.  258. 


Of    the    Southern    States.       1135 

to  the  satisfaction  of  a  jury  that  the  slaves  were 
for  necessary  attendance.80 

There  were  minor  acts  and  quite  a  number  o£ 
acts  of  a  private  character. 

TENNESSEE. 

Tennessee  was  originally  a  part  of  North  Caro 
lina  and  the  laws  of  North  Carolina  which  were  in 
force  at  the  time  of  the  cession  of  Tennessee  to  the 
United  States  in  1790  were  continued  in  force  in 
Tennessee.81 

The  first  law  passed  by  Tennessee  with  refer 
ence  to  importation  of  slaves  was  in  1812.  It 
prohibited  their  importation  as  merchandise  for  a 
term  of  five  years.  Persons  coming  as  settlers 
or  residents  who  had  acquired  slaves  by  descent, 
devise,  marriage,  or  purchase  for  their  own  use 
were  permitted  to  import  them.  Immigrants 
were  obliged  to  take  the  following  oath : 

"I,  A.  B.,  do  solemnly  swear  or  affirm  that  I 
have  removed  myself  and  slaves  to  the  State  of 
Tennessee  with  the  full  and  sole  view  of  becom- 


of  Kentucky,  1832-33,  p.  258. 
8!Hurd:   Vol.  II.,  p.  89  and  Note  2. 


136    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

ing  a  citizen,  and  that  I  have  not  brought  my 
slave  or  slaves  to  this  State  with  any  view  to  the 
securing  of  the  same  against  any  rebellion  or 
apprehension  of  rebellion,  so  help  me  God."82 

No  other  law  concerning  importation  was  en 
acted  until  1826.  It  was  practically  the  same  as 
that  of  1812  except  that  it  was  a  perpetual  act 
and  no  one  was  allowed  to  introduce  slaves  which 
had  been  guilty  of  crimes  in  other  States.83  This 
act  continued  in  force  until  1855  when  so  much 
of  it  was  repealed  as  related  to  the  importation 
of  slaves  as  merchandise.84 

MISSOURI,  ARKANSAS,  FLORIDA  AND 
TEXAS. 

The  Constitution  of  Missouri  (1820)  circum 
scribed  the  powers  of  the  legislature  with  refer 
ence  to  importation  of  slaves  as  follows : 

"The  General  Assembly  shall  have  no  power  to 
pass  laws  to  prevent  bona  fide  immigrants  to  this 
State  or  actual  settlers  therein  from  bringing 

82Acts  of  Tenn.,  2nd  Sess.,  Qth  Gen.  Assembly 
(1812),  p.  84. 

"Acts  of  the  Extra  Sess.  of  the  i6th  General  As 
sembly  of  Tennessee,  1826,  p.  31. 

84Acts  of  General  Assembly  of  Tenn.,  1855-6,  p.  71. 


Of    the    Southern    States.        137 

from  any  of  the  United  States,  or  from  any  of 
their  territories,  such  persons  as  may  there  be 
deemed  to  be  slaves,  so  long  as  any  persons  of  the 
same  description  are  allowed  to  be  held  as  slaves 
by  the  laws  of  this  State. 

"They  shall  have  power  to  pass  laws  : 

"To  prohibit  the  introduction  into  this  State  of 
any  slaves  who  may  have  committed  any  high 
crime  in  any  other  State  or  territory  ; 

"To  prohibit  the  introduction  of  any  slave  for 
the  purpose  of  speculation,  or  as  an  article  of 
trade  or  merchandise  ; 

"To  prohibit  the  introduction  of  any  slave  or  the 
offspring  of  any  slave,  who  heretofore  may  have 
been,  or  who  hereafter  may  be  imported  from  any 
foreign  country  into  the  United  States  or  any  ter 
ritory  thereof  in  contravention  of  any  existing 
statue  of  the  United  States."85 

The  first  constitutions  of  most  of  the  other 
Southern  States  had  provisions  somewhat  similar 
to  these  among  which  are  Arkansas,86  Florida,87 
and  Texas.88 


ah.,  p.  I779. 


138    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

The  only  laws  passed  by  Missouri  regarding 
importation  were  those  of  1835,  1843  and  1845. 
The  law  of  1843  simply  prohibited  the  importation 
of  slaves  entitled  to  freedom  at  a  future  date89  and 
against  kidnapping  in  i845.90  The  law  of  1835 
was  the  leading  one.  It  prohibited  the  introduc 
tion  of  any  slave  who  had  elsewhere  committed 
any  infamous  crime,  or  any  who  had  been  re 
moved  from  Missouri  for  crime,  or  any  imported 
into  the  United  States  contrary  to  law.91 

Texas92  and  Florida93  as  States  seem  never  to 
have  prohibited  the  importation  of  slaves  except 
those  guilty  of  crime. 

The  only  act  of  Arkansas  concerning  importa 
tion  was  passed  in  1838  and  put  in  force  by 
proclamation  of  the  Governor  March  20,  1839. 
It  was  never  repealed  so  far  as  we  could  find,  and 
is  as  follows: 

"No  person  shall  knowingly  bring  or  cause  to 


*9Hurd:  Vol.  II.,  p.  170. 

»°Revised  Statutes  of  Mo.,  Revised  and  Digested  by 
I3th  Gen.  Assembly   (1844-5),  P-  351- 
^Revised  Statutes  of  Mo.  (1844-5),  p.  1013. 
»2Rurd:  Vol.  II.,  p.  199- 
93Ibid.,  p.  192. 


Of   the    Southern    States.       1139 

be  brought  into  this  State,  or  hold,  purchase,  hire, 
sell,  or  otherwise  dispose  of  within   the  same; 
first,  any  slave  who  may  have  committed  in  any 
other  State,  territory  or  district  within  the  United 
States,  or  any  foreign  country,  any  offense,  which, 
if  committed  within  the  State,  would,  according 
to  the  laws  thereof,  be  felony  or  infamous  crime  ; 
or  second,  any  slave  who  shall  have  been  convicted 
in  this  State,  of  any  felony  or  infamous  crime, 
and  ordered  to  be  taken  or  removed  out  of  this 
State,  according  to  the  laws  thereof ;  or  third,  any 
slave  who  shall  have  actually  been  removed  out  of 
this  State  after  a  conviction  of  felony  or  other 
infamous  crime,  although  no  order  of  removal 
shall  have  been  made;   or  fourth,  any  person  or 
the  descendant  of  any  person,  who  shall  have  been 
imported  into  the  United  States,  or  any  of  the 
territories  thereof  in  contravention  of  the  laws 
of  the  United  States,  and  held  as  a  slave."94 

^English:  Digest  of  Statutes  of  Arkansas,  p.  947, 
Chap.  154,  Sec.  30.  Same  law  in  Digest  by  Gould,  pub. 
1858,  by  authority  of  Legislature,  Chap.  162,  Sec.  28. 


140    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 


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PERIODICALS  AND  NEWSPAPERS. 

Quarterly,    Anti-Slavery    Magazine.      Vol.    II. 

New  York,  1837. 
De   Bow's   Review,   New   Orleans.      1846-1861, 

especially  vols.  3,  8,  18,  22,  23,  24  and  26. 


Of    the    Southern    States.        151 

The  African  Repository  and   Colonial  Journal. 

Vol.  V.,  1830,  Washington. 
Charleston  Courier.    Charleston,  S.  C.     1835. 
Cambridge  Chronicle,  Cambridge,  Md.     1831. 
The   Christian   Citizen,   Worcester   and   Boston, 

1844. 

Christian  Freeman,  Hartford,  Conn.    1845. 
Charleston  Mercury,  Charleston,  S.  C.     1833. 
The  Emancipator,  New  York.     1842,  1843,  1848. 
Richmond  Enquirer,  Richmond,  1831,  1832,  1859. 
Village  Herald,  Princess  Anne,  Md.     1831. 
The  Virginia  Herald,  Fredericksburg,  Va.    1836. 
Winyaw  Intelligencer,  Georgeton,  S.  C.     1830. 
The  Liberator,  (Wm.  L.  Garrison,  Ed.)     1831- 

1861. 

The  Mississippian  ;  Jackson,  Miss.    1837. 
Snow    Hill    Messenger   and    Worcester   County 

Advertiser,  Snow  Hill,  Md.     1832,  1833. 
Freeman  Hunt:    The  Merchants'  Magazine  and 

Commercial     Review.       Vols.     VI.,     XV., 

XLIII.    New  York. 

The  National  Era,  Washington.    1847,  J849- 
Daily  National  Intelligencer,  Washington,  D.  C. 

1836. 
Niles'    Register,    Baltimore,    Md.       1812-1861, 

especially  1817,  1818,  1820,  1824,  1826,  1828, 

1829,  1831. 
Norfolk  and  Portsmouth  Herald.    Norfolk,  Va. 

1826. 
New  Orleans  Picayune,  New  Orleans,  1846,  1856, 

1858,  1859. 
North  Carolina  Standard,  Raleigh,  N.  C.    1837. 


i  $2    The    Domestic    Slave   Trade 

LAWS. 

Alabama: 

Act  of  the  General  Assembly  of  1827,  1831-2, 
1832-3,  1840-41. 

Arkansas: 

A  Digest  of  the  Statutes  of  Arkansas  embracing 
all  laws  of  a  general  and  Permanent  Charac 
ter  in  Force  at  the  close  of  the  Session  of  the 
General  Assembly  of  1846.  Little  Rock, 
Ark.  1848. 

'Delaware: 

Laws  of  1793;  1829,  m  Vol.  VII.;  1833  in  Vol. 
VIII. 

Florida: 

Laws  of  1850-51. 

Georgia : 

Acts  of  the  General  Assembly  of  1817,  1824, 1835, 
1849-50,  1855-6. 

Oliver  H.  Prince :  A  Digest  of  the  Laws  of  Geor 
gia  in  force  December,  1837.  By  Authority 
of  the  Legislature.  Athens,  Ga.  1837. 

Kentucky: 

Laws  of  1814-15,  1832-33. 

Harry  Toulmin :  A  Collection  of  all  Public  and 
Permanent  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly 
of  Kentucky  which  are  now  in  Force.  Frank- 
ford,  Ky.  1802. 

Louisiana: 

Laws  of  1826,  1828,  1829, 1831,  (also  Extra  Sess. 
1831).  1834. 


Of   the   Southern   States.       [153 

Maryland: 

Laws  of  1809,  1818,  1833-4,  1846,  1847,  1849-50. 

Clement  Dorsey :  The  General  Public  Statutory 
Law  and  Public  Local  Law  of  the  State  of 
Maryland  from  the  year  1692  to  1836  in 
clusive.  3  vols.  Baltimore,  1840. 

Virgil  Maxcy :  The  Revised  Laws  of  Maryland. 
3  vols.  Baltimore.  1811. 

Henry  C.  Mackall :  The  Maryland  Code  Adopted 
by  the  Legislature  in  1860.  Baltimore,  1860. 

Mississippi: 

Laws  .  .  .  from  January  Session  1824  to  the 
January  Session  1838  inclusive.  Published 
by  Authority  of  the  Legislature.  Jackson, 
Miss.  1838. 

Laws  of  1819.    Adjd.  Sess.    1822. 

(Turner) :  Statutes  of  the  Mississippi  Territory, 
Digested  by  authority  of  the  General  As 
sembly.  Natchez,  1816. 

A.  Hutchinson:  Code  of  Mississippi  from  1708 
to  1848.  Jackson,  1848. 

Missouri: 

Laws  of  the  State  of  Missouri.  Revised  and  Di 
gested  by  Authority  of  the  General  Assem 
bly.  2  vols.  St.  Louis,  1825. 

Revised  Statutes  of  the  State  of  Missouri.  Re 
vised  and  Digested  by  the  I3th  General  As 
sembly,  Session  1844-5.  St.  Louis,  1845. 

North  Carolina: 

Laws  of  the  State  of  North  Carolina  as  are  now 
m  Force  in  this  State.  Revised  under  Au 
thority  of  the  General  Assembly  of  1819  2 
vols.  Raleigh,  1821. 


154    The    Domestic    Slave    Trade 

Revised  Statutes  passed  by  the  General  Assembly 
of  1836-7.  2  vols.  Raleigh,  1837. 

John  Haywood :  A  Manual  of  the  Laws  of  North 
Carolina;  (4th  Ed.)  Raleigh,  1819. 

South  Carolina: 

Laws  of  1816,  1817,  1818,  1823,  1835, 1837,  l847> 
1848. 

Acts  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State  of 
South  Carolina  from  February  1791  to  De 
cember  1794,  both  inclusive.  1st  vol.  1795  to 
1804,  both  inclusive.  Columbia,  1808. 

David  J.  McCord:  The  Statutes  at  Large  of 
South  Carolina.  Edited  under  Authority  of 
the  Legislature.  Vol.  VII.  Columbia,  1840. 

Tennessee: 

Laws  of  1812,    Extra  Sess.    1826,  1855. 

Virginia: 

Acts  of  the  General  Assembly  of  1810-11,  1818- 

19. 

Samuel  Shepherd :  The  Statutes  at  Large  of  Vir 
ginia,  from  October  Session  1792  to  Decem 
ber  Session  1806  inclusive.  3  vols.  (New 
Series).  Being  a  continuation  of  Hening. 
Richmond,  1835  and  1836. 

Wm.  Waller  Hening :  Statutes  at  Large  of  Vir 
ginia.  13  vols.  Richmond,  1812. 

United  States,  Statutes  at  Large  Vol.  V. 

T.  R.  R.  Cobb:  Law  of  Negro  Slavery  in  the 
Various  States  of  the  United  States.  Phila 
delphia,  1856. 

John  Codman  Kurd :  The  Law  of  Freedom  and 
Bondage  in  the  United  States.  2  vols.  Bos 
ton,  1862. 


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14  DAY  USE 

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